India and Pakistan played one drawn series after another in the '50s and '60s but large crowds flocked to most matches. Even today, domestic games played in small cities in India have quite an audience, despite many ending in drab draws.

Maybe one can point to the social life of people in smaller cities, the fact that a cricket match provides considerable entertainment. Bigger cities have large malls, frequent conerts and people usually find ways to entertain themselves.

Sevreral theories can be floated but it just took a Shahid Afridi dismissal for most of the crowd to instantly walk out, confirming that it was the only event they had come to watch all day.

There's nothing more that a marketing man can ask of a cricketer than the ability to fill stadiums on a most meaningless of days.