Will India Be Known for Sports other than Cricket??
The Great Indian
Cricket Bubble has finally burst this week with the IPL betting and match
fixing controversy gobbling up 2 teams and once again bringing the ‘gentleman’s
game’ into disrepute. On the brighter side India hogged the headlines over the
weekend in another continent when tennis history was created. The women’s
doubles and mixed doubles were won by Sania Mirza and Leader Paes respectively with
their common partner, Martina Hingis. To top it, the boy’s doubles title was
won by Sumit Nangal of India with his Viatnamese partner. Truly a fantabulous
achievement, especially in our country, where only one sport has the privilege
to be on the cover pages screaming headlines, for good or bad.
I wonder why? Why
has cricket assumed so much importance in our nation’s lifeline that we do not
seem to be able to survive without it? If that is so, why is cricket not our
national sport, as many would wrongly believe?
Our modern sporting
history got off to a rich start. The first Olympic medal won by India was way back in
1900 – unbelievable isn’t it? Norman Pritchard won two silver medals in the
very first Olympics that India participated in. India’s long forgotten glory,
however, came in the field of Hockey. The hockey team was the unconquered
champion from 1928 to 1956, winning 6 Olympic consecutive gold medals. If the Second
World War had not interrupted the 1940 and 1944 quadrennial event, we would have
had as many as 10 consecutive wins. In any event even that record is invincible
after almost 60 years. India reached the finals in 1960 but lost to Pakistan.
However, the team fought back and regained the title in 1964. India’s 8th
Olympic hockey gold medal came in 1980, a feat which no other team has come close
to, with Germany a distant second with 4 golds. It is this reason that hockey
is officially recognized as our national sport. Although it was a team effort, the
individual brilliance of Dhyan Chand remains the talking point – the term
‘Hockey Wizard’ was coined in his honour since the ball would never leave his hockey stick!
Around the same
time the Indian football team had almost got its moment of pride – a chance to
participate in the World Cup 1950 which was squandered by a historical blunder.
The Indian team had qualified by default due to withdrawal of other Asian teams
and was placed in Group 3. However, the All India Football Association (AIFF) chose
not to send the team citing a number of reasons like cost of travel etc. The
righteousness of the decision can be debated but considering the downfall of
Indian football in the next few decades and its poor condition today, that
decision certainly shows utter lack of foresight of the football authorities.
In 1952,
alongside the Hockey team, there was an individual winner – Khashaba Jadhav who
won the bronze in the wrestling category. He was the lone medal individual winner for India for the next 44 years till
Leader Paes won the bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympics. Another
sporting legend was making his mark during this period – we all know Milkha Singh, now immortalized
in the Bollywood blockbuster ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’. The ace sprinter had set the
tracks ablaze with his unbeatable running capabilities. Among indoor games,
billiards brought India recognition early on in the form of Wilson Jones, who
bagged the World Amateur Billiards Championship held in Calcutta as early as 1958.
These are some
major landmarks in Indian sports history. I would say that we had a decent
start. Apart from some individual efforts, there was not much emphasis or
encouragement from any other quarter to make all these sports a career choice.
However much the love of sports was for the youth, it had to be sacrificed at
the altar of professional education.
Curiously cricket survived this decline. I have no doubt in the abilities of our cricket achievements or heroes. Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid or for that matter Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath are legends in their own league. The 1983 Wold Cup triumph changed the way cricket was viewed in India. Kapil’s devils were able to release the West Indies’ stranglehold on international cricket and India had arrived with a bang.
However, if we take a closer look at India’s rise on the cricket arena, we will notice a stark reality. Cricket is played among a handful of nations, and usually it is the top 8 countries fighting it out against each other every now and then. The competition has not expanded much in the last many years. Even then out of the 11 World Cups so far, India has won only 2, whereas Australia shows dominance having won 5 in total and 3 consecutively.
On the other hand all other sports mentioned above are played at the global level and competition is tremendous. Any achievement in these would have much more significance than cricket achievements. In the recent years there has been a spurt of all round performance by Indians in the world arena – the diversification is noteworthy. We have champions in badminton, shooting, boxing, wrestling, chess, tennis, weightlifting, golf, billiards & snooker, kabaddi to name a few. It is also heartening to see Indians competing successfully and being appreciated by stalwarts. However sports as a career is still a distance dream. The entire country runs after cricket where, I dare say, opportunities have increased with the introduction of IPL. However competition is fierce and chances of success of selection are still not very high.
Our dependence on one sport to bring us glory is foolhardy. We need to make space for competitive games to not only elevate our international sporting status but also to hone individual skills and fulfill dreams of school children (mine was to be a basketball player).
Some steps have been taken such as the Indian Super League (Football), Indian Premier Tennis League, Pro Kabaddi League etc. The Government also has a limited sports quota for education and employment. It is high time that our Government and corporate houses focus on giving priority to sports other than cricket to encourage hidden talent to come to the forefront. We have world class facilities built for the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games but the infrastructure, which cost a fortune to build, is simply being wasted due to lack of appropriate utilisation. We have seen how the AIFF’s apathy had cost us dearly in 1950 – should we not learn our lesson from that and make amends? If we put our heart, mind and souls it is possible that a nation with 1.2 billion people cannot produce quality sports professionals on a regular basis.
Curiously cricket survived this decline. I have no doubt in the abilities of our cricket achievements or heroes. Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid or for that matter Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohinder Amarnath are legends in their own league. The 1983 Wold Cup triumph changed the way cricket was viewed in India. Kapil’s devils were able to release the West Indies’ stranglehold on international cricket and India had arrived with a bang.
However, if we take a closer look at India’s rise on the cricket arena, we will notice a stark reality. Cricket is played among a handful of nations, and usually it is the top 8 countries fighting it out against each other every now and then. The competition has not expanded much in the last many years. Even then out of the 11 World Cups so far, India has won only 2, whereas Australia shows dominance having won 5 in total and 3 consecutively.
On the other hand all other sports mentioned above are played at the global level and competition is tremendous. Any achievement in these would have much more significance than cricket achievements. In the recent years there has been a spurt of all round performance by Indians in the world arena – the diversification is noteworthy. We have champions in badminton, shooting, boxing, wrestling, chess, tennis, weightlifting, golf, billiards & snooker, kabaddi to name a few. It is also heartening to see Indians competing successfully and being appreciated by stalwarts. However sports as a career is still a distance dream. The entire country runs after cricket where, I dare say, opportunities have increased with the introduction of IPL. However competition is fierce and chances of success of selection are still not very high.
Our dependence on one sport to bring us glory is foolhardy. We need to make space for competitive games to not only elevate our international sporting status but also to hone individual skills and fulfill dreams of school children (mine was to be a basketball player).
Some steps have been taken such as the Indian Super League (Football), Indian Premier Tennis League, Pro Kabaddi League etc. The Government also has a limited sports quota for education and employment. It is high time that our Government and corporate houses focus on giving priority to sports other than cricket to encourage hidden talent to come to the forefront. We have world class facilities built for the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games but the infrastructure, which cost a fortune to build, is simply being wasted due to lack of appropriate utilisation. We have seen how the AIFF’s apathy had cost us dearly in 1950 – should we not learn our lesson from that and make amends? If we put our heart, mind and souls it is possible that a nation with 1.2 billion people cannot produce quality sports professionals on a regular basis.
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| Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium for Hockey, New Delhi Photo courtesy - archive.indianexpress.com |
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