The Big Fight is on. In Indian soil. The clash between two of the superpowers of world cricket Australia and India (superpower??!!) has brought the limelight back on Indian Cricket. As though the limelight had ever shifted from it!
Before i continue any further, I'd like to say that Cricket is my 2nd favourite after Football, in terms of sports i Love to watch. And so do not misunderstand me as some Cricket-Hater because of the article you're about to read. But this is something which I've been longing to write for ages now. And its precisely about the negative impact Cricket has had on Indian sports.
Its been just about 2 months now since the 2008 Summer Olympics. But even then its Indian heroes are almost as good as forgotten at the moment (Abhinav Bindra. Ring a Bell??). Even when Cricketers don't play any cricket, The Media don't give them a break. Can they be
blamed? The world's richest sports body - BCCI. How did it become that? Millionares Vijay Mallya, Mukesh Ambani, Shah Rukh Khan buying IPL teams. We can question their attitude and ask why they would not do the same for sports like Hockey or Football. Are they wrong?? They're just doing what anyone else would have done in their position. Investing in something which would yield high returns. But the bottom line is, Cricket has literally shut out the other sports. And this is because of us! Our craze for this game is what is responsible for it.
I'm not criticizing the nation's general taste. But I just wish we'd give other games a try! And we should do so taking certain facts into account.
1. The number of countries who "competitively" play Cricket is 8 to 10. When there are totally about 200 countries! And even in this list of 8, we're not the top. So what is it that makes us so crazy about Cricket?!? I mean i can understand if Australia were as crazy about it. Because they're the best cricket team in the world.
2. Football is the most widely watched game in thew world, with almost every country on earth participating in it. I believe Brazil can take 1000 times greater pride in winning the Football World Cup than we would do if we win the Cricket World Cup. Thats because Brazil has truly competed at a GLOBAL LEVEL. A tournament with 8 countries involved (truly speaking!!) and we call it a World Cup?!!? Makes me Laugh My Ass Out!
3. In the recently concluded Summer olympics, we won 3 medals - 2 Bronze, 1 Gold. China won 51 Golds. USA had won 110 medals in total. And only 3 medals from a country with 1 billion people. Wow!!
4. Hockey is our National Game, hope you know that, and yet the state of Indian Hockey is miserable. We even had news earlier about some people trying to demote it of its National Game status. So much for what cricket has done.
5. I really wonder if people in today's world have time to follow a match for 5 full days! Alright its a TEST match and its a Test for the players involved. And sometimes it is a good watch. But sometimes its as much a Test for us!!
6. The population of Spain is 20 million less than that of Tamil Nadu! And yet in terms of sports they draw no comparison to India. Just a few examples of the Sports they excel in would be Football, Tennis, F1. They even won 18 Medals this Olympics (incuding 5 Golds).
Its now time for us to ponder over this. And see what cricket has done to other Sports in this nation. Just like many others even I dream that one day we win the Football World Cup. But for that to happen, a lot has to change. Starting with our attitude on games other than Cricket....
