Cricket is a slow game – except for the recent T20 form, test matches are 5 days while one days are 6 hours – that is a long time to watch a game. Playing – well – a friendly game in the park can be 5 overs or 15 overs and special forms of cricket like ‘gully’ cricket require much less equipment – just a wooden bat and a ball.

The second reason are the rules – 10 forms of getting out ( now 09), one of them lbw, wides, no balls, fielding positions ( men outside the 30 yard ring, catching position etc.)

There is a larger variety in bowling – fast, swing, finger spin, wrist spin – using either hand and variations between them.

Soccer is 90 minutes of dynamics – the rules are relatively simple -offside, goal scoring and dangerous tackle. Hockey, a similar game in terms of time ( as it was some time back) now requires a specialised field unlike soccer that can be played anywhere.

So, in short, the time in the game and complicated laws as compared to soccer make cricket less popular.

Reasons being:

• Cricket was played and spread by british, they played the game wherever they went. As british started colonising different countries, they played the sport in these countries ans slowly it became popular among the localites.
• Look athe map above. This represents the test playing nations. All were british colonies.
• Cricket, initially, was played until the match finished that is as long as 10 days. When limitations were laid it became a 5 day game and till 2005 the game still had a 7 hour format as its shortest. Thus, spending so much time on a game was never a feasible option.
• Cricket is comparitively a slower game as compared to football or hockey. After every deliery there is a pause of 30–40 seconds as the bowler runs into ball the next delivery. Not liked by those who love fast paced games like footbal were sometimes you cant even blink.