India's Cricket World Cup triumph, is it global?

First of all my congratulations to the Indian Cricket Team, the support staff and the games followers for winning the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup title!

As one can see from the reactions from the media, the superstars and the general public; this win means a lot for India and its people. The celebrations are not only within India, but Indians around the world are enjoying this success.

But amongst all these celebrations the question has to be asked, what impact does such a Cricket World Cup triumph have on the world at large? Is the planet actually noticing what is happening in India? Maybe on international news channels, but often not the mainstream media across the globe. Most of the 7 billion inhabitants won't even know that India has won the Cricket World Cup.

I can give you a personal example here from Germany, where cricket is not followed at all. I myself, who is not a Cricket expert, had been asked by Germany's biggest newspaper the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung' to write something about the World Cup for Germans to understand. First an article about the India vs Pakistan match, what it means for the sub-continent and then a report on Indian after winning the World Cup for tomorrows edition. It has been really though to write for me such an insightful article knowing I am targeting an audience with no knowledge on what I am writing.

To explain that this win means a lot to many amongst the 1,2 billion plus Indians, but the rest of the world doesn't even know what has happened in the subcontinent over the last few weeks. It is like the grand finales of US sports - American Football's Super Bowl, Baseballs World Series, etc - or the World Cup finals of many different sporting disciplines. Could you tell me who won the Skiing or Biathlon World Cup titles earlier this year? In Scandinavia they'll all tell you!

And I think that Cricket will never become a global sport whatever the ICC, the BCCI, etc try to do, then for an average sports fan who watches sports live or on television it is either about the game or entertainment. And cricket hasn't been able to create that connect elsewhere then the subcontinent and some other Commonwealth nations.

If you look at efforts that have failed to promote cricket in North America and China. I once knew the former president of the US Cricket Federation and he told me about five years back it would be difficult to promote the game in the US due to the countries sporting diversity and lack of infrastructure though South Asians and people from the West Indies have tried to establish the game, even India vs Pakistan series used to be played in Toronto, Canada takes part, but what else?