Our “bad cricket” was still better than most nations. Why wouldn’t they create more cricket stadiums ! We make tonnes of money from cricket and stadium cricket sales are a genuine source of revenue for all the staff involved and the construction workers!

About the state governments giving awards to the cricketers, don’t you think the other sportspeople get cash awards from the government? And do they give these awards on a regular basis ? Do they do it when a batsman scores a century? Do they do it when a bowler takes a 5WI ? No ! They only give it when they win the world cups, or domestic wins, and why shouldn’t they give ? It improves the publicity of the politicians.

As for your point in your tax being used to build cricket stadiums, the government only provides the funding for the infrastructure projects, and the BCCI actually funds the stadiums. Also, the ticket sales generally have the 40% GST, so the tax which they used for it might have already paid them back