From Pitches to Podiums

Why India Must Embrace Multi-Disciplinary Sports

I am not much into watching TV programmes, including the hysterical shows that go for ‘news’. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help the other day overhearing a tiny bit of Amitabh Bachan shooting a question at a participant in his ‘Kaun Banega Crorepathi’ quiz extravaganza, which my neighbour was watching. The question was what colour of jersey a particular team was wearing in one of the T-20 cricket matches, or some such trivia. It sounded so absurd that in a celebrated quiz show that is lapped up by our national audience, which purportedly appraises the general knowledge of the participants, they must be posing such a silly question. One can understand a question on the performance of our cricket team in the world cup or about one of our outstanding cricketeers. However, asking questions on T-20 matches, which, notwithstanding the all-round excitement they generate, are turning out to be a gross commercialization of a gentlemen’s game, amounts to nothing short of misguiding the youth in their perception of what general knowledge should be. It indicates a deeper malady of Indian psyche at large, an unhealthy fixation with cricket.

Why are we so obsessed with cricket, which certainly does not rank equal in its level of competitiveness with other more robust field games like football or hockey? The plain fact, as an avid cricketeer-friend of mine once told me, is that we are desperately hanging on to the only game in which we can be notable performers to the rest of the world, to salvage whatever sporting pride we have in us. This was not the case always. Once up on a time, we were star performers in hockey and football at the Olympic arena. When and how did we end up as one of the poorest sporting nations in the world, despite being the most populace one?

The disproportionate popularity of cricket vis-à-vis the other games have eroded the sporting culture of the country over the years. Our wrestlers, boxers and other sportsmen and women, who, in recent years, have begun to make their mark in Olympics, deserve to be truly admired, for proving themselves successful performers on the global stage, despite the lack of popularity and public acclaim they receive in our country. Even in remote villages, where children once reveled in playing football or kabaddi, you find them wielding cricket bats nowadays. This in itself speaks volumes on our inability as a country to earn a respectable medal tally in Olympics. Young minds are swayed away by the glitter of cricket and mindlessly indulge in it without giving themselves a chance to try their mettle in other games.

Governmental agencies and some private bodies are indeed doing a lot to encourage development of sports in multi disciplines, but that is not enough if we are to compete with global sporting giants like the United States or China. As a people, we need to encourage and enthuse our sportsmen and women in multi-disciplinary fields. For starters, it might be worthwhile to sit back and reflect for a moment, whether we are doing the right thing, glorifying cricket and lionizing cricketeers so much. It’s a pathetic deficiency of competitive mindset. Some years ago, when Sachin Tendulkar was ticked off for ball tampering, Mumbai witnessed riotous street shows, people accusing the referee of having slighted our national honour. Oh, come on, it’s a game and it has its rules; we don’t link our ‘national honour’ with something as trivial as that. Nevertheless, it demonstrated our shallow sporting outlook.

Time has come for all, governmental organizations, corporate bodies and individual citizens, to take stock of the situation and make a concerted effort to promote true sports. After all, we have seen, how, over the years, smoking habit has diminished to a considerable extent among the population, through education and campaigning. This could very well happen with the revamping of our sporting culture, if we could inspire and enthuse our young to take up competitive sports and aim for the gold. Interestingly, cricket and film celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan have been, for a while, taking initiatives in the right direction, by sponsoring football teams, which is laudable. If more and more celebrities pick up the trend, it could do a groundswell of progression for Indian sports. Let Neeraj Copra and Manu Bhaker be our national icons for a change, rather than Rohit Sharma and Harmanpreet Kaur always!