Like a teenager whose physical growth hasn't yet been matched by increased emotional maturity, cricket's new-found wealth hasn't been accompanied by a sophisticated understanding of its customers. Cricket's money ultimately comes, of course, from spectators—directly, in the form of gate receipts, and indirectly, from TV subscriptions and through fans spending their money with brands that sponsor the sport.

Sri Lankan cricketer Tillekeratne Dilshan posed with the Man of the Match trophy after the team defeated Zimbabwe in Pallekele on March 10. After every match, commentators hold interviews with players from both teams while standing in front of signboards that list all the major World Cup sponsors. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

With the ticketing fiascoes surrounding the World Cup in South Asia, the game's administrators risk alienating people who attend games. By far the greater number of fanatical cricket supporters watch matches on television—and, if the World Cup and other recent major tournaments are anything to go by, they're going to start getting pretty restive soon, too.

The global TV rights to the World Cup were sold to ESPN Star Sports for about $2 billion, while the 10-year rights to the Indian Premier League—a domestic competition—went in 2008 to a consortium consisting of domestic network Sony Entertainment Television and Singapore's World Sport Group for $1.89 billion. Those broadcasters can sell the rights to other companies in some regions, but still, to recoup that kind of money, there is no choice but to cram as many commercials as possible down viewers' throats.

And so watching the World Cup can be a painful experience, particularly for viewers in South Asia. Every single second of the break between overs is filled with a succession of ads; Pakistani TV, in particular, often serves up a disorientating succession of 10-second spots. Moreover, many ads feature the players themselves: Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for example, the game's second-biggest commercial drawcard after legendary teammate Sachin Tendulkar, has no fewer than 20 endorsement deals.

So not only is there overkill, but it's also distracting, constantly toggling between the same faces playing the game and hawking the latest telecommunications device, motorcycle or other product.

Cricket's a stop-start, staccato game at the best of times; the pauses between balls and overs are what gives it its rhythm. Filling them with ads makes it seem like a commercial feeding frenzy with an accidental bit of sport in between. Certain viewers, like myself, now seem to spend almost as much time engaged in other activities to avoid the ads as we do watching the 50-over games.

Advertising increasingly makes its presence felt as South Africa's Colin Ingram plays a shot during his side's World Cup match against Ireland, Tuesday. Associated Press

Last year's IPL also boasted a ridiculous number of ads between overs, but even worse was what happened between ad breaks, during the actual match. Not only were there sometimes short ads between balls, but also, thanks to an exclusive deal between the league and TV company Nimbus, which includes all home domestic and international games, commentators were forced to plug sponsors live on-air, during matches. And so, catches become Karbonn Kamal Catches, wickets become Citi Moments of Success and sixes become DLF Maximums, while the qualities of the MRF blimp staring Big Brother-like down at the grounds were regularly expounded on by different commentators—in exactly the same words. The only pleasure in the tawdry, excruciating business is hearing those commentators try to keep the irony and distaste out of their voices (except excitable New Zealander Danny Morrison, who bizarrely seems to enjoy it). In other words: those multimillion dollar bids you see in the Indian Premier League auction to secure a player's services for just six weeks? They're being underwritten by the viewing misery of the cricket-loving public.

I'm engaged in a one-man boycott of all products associated with any company that conspires to ruin my cricket-watching pleasure in this way, figuring that the only way to discourage this kind of contempt for the viewing public is to vote with your feet so it has precisely the opposite of the intended effect. Granted, most of the sponsors are domestic Indian companies, so my protest probably isn't having much effect; perhaps if people in India do the same, it might have. Broadcasters and sponsors need to be made aware that viewers won't just lie down and supinely take this: You cannot ruin my pleasure in the sport I love and get away with it.

Ads are emblazoned on the stumps and they surround the playing field. Above, West Indies fast-bowler Andre Russell as he celebrated after taking the wicket of Ireland's Ed Joyce on Friday in Mohali, India. Associated Press

It can be painful to watch otherwise excellent broadcasters doing this kind of commercial contortion. During its decades-long association with the game, Australia's Nine Network has done more than any other broadcaster to improve the TV viewer's experience thanks to its involvement in many of cricket's most far-sighted innovations. This progression has gone from day-night cricket under floodlights in the 1970s to replay-technology breakthroughs such as Hot Spot, Hawk-Eye and Snicko in recent years. It also fields one of world's smartest and most insightful (if frequently also most jingoistic) commentary teams. But these days its gallery of former test greats has to interrupt the commentary to hawk tacky memorabilia, trail other TV shows on the network and promote competitions (one offering a year's supply of junk food as a prize) and polls asking viewers to hazard a guess at some sort of pointless prediction. As technology improves the network's coverage of the action, everything that surrounds it becomes more and more off-putting and unpalatable.

Like fans who will only deal with substandard grounds and farcical ticketing arrangements for so long, so TV viewers will only take so much of this. Cricket's short-term need to continue financing its rapid expansion could end up alienating the most important people in the game. And, just to make it clear, those people aren't the players, officials, administrators, TV companies, journalists, pundits, advertisers, sponsors or assorted hangers-on. They're the fans. Only the fans. The ones who, in the end, pay for it all.