Riddle Me This: Is Cricket Really the Root of All Evils in Indian Sport?

It’s a very funny story really.

Four sons are born to a farmer, who just about earns enough to feed his family and save for seeds and a rainy day. Time goes by, the farmer puts his sons through school and all that is supposed to be the duty of a good parent. Time comes, and the sons depart, to begin the journey of life.

Here comes the twist in the tale: while one grows prosperous, famous, and comes to be loved by all, the others stutter in life, face hardships, due to no doing of their own. And when the time of reckoning comes, the three blame the prosperous one for their downfall!

“Everybody is so busy praising and talking about him, they ignore us totally!”

Oh come on, I hear! That’s absurd, you think!

Well, absurd as it may sound, that’s reality as far as many Indians are concerned. And to top it all off, many of the relatives of the sons agree!

Let me begin by saying, when the Indian hockey team was winning all those golds at the Olympics and other events, and everyone was so behind it, it was declared the National Sport (!), no one ever heard cricketers or cricket administrators complaining!

When Vijay Amritraj created history by becoming the first Indian to reach the semi finals of a Grand Slam, by doing so at the Wimbledon, the country was engulfed in tennis-mania. Cricket never complained.

It wasn’t until 1983, the fateful year when the Indians beat the ferocious West Indies, at their prime, to clinch the World Cup at Lord’s, a feat no one even dreamed to be possible till a week before!

Cricket in India began to take off.

Three years later India won the Champion of Champions tournament in Australia, again beating West Indies in the final.

Through this time, Indian cricket produced some international superstars, such as Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Bishen Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna and Dilip Vengsarkar apart from national heroes such as Gundappa Vishwanath, Roger Binny and Mohinder Amarnath.

Even administrators such as N.K.P. Salve became hot property at the international arena. Salve even went on to be the I.C.C. Chief.

The fact that cricket’s rise coincided with changing of the hockey playing area from sand based turf to the astro turf, often called the death knell of Indian hockey, proved to be a lucky factor for Indian cricket.

Football was never a sport Indians patronized in the first place. Barring a brief period during the 40’s and 50’s, when Indian football went places, (The World Cup, for God’s sake, due to withdrawal of scheduled opponents in the qualifiers!), the game never took off. The fact that they were barred to play in the World Cup due to lack of professional footwear meant that the sport died a premature death domestically.

So while Indian hockey plummeted to the floor and beyond, and football ceased to exist, cricket rose up to the skies!

As the successful son rose higher in society, the poorer sons started falling prey to corruption and mismanagement management.

Yet, through all this, no one seemed to mind the advent of cricket. It became pop culture. Everyone wanted to be a cricketer. Hockey was passé.

The ‘80s went by, then came the ‘90s. Cricket got its wonder kid, Sachin Tendulkar. Cricket became a commercial property, and the money gushed in like a waterfall. And then, the noise began!

Claims ranging from cricket luring away money to cricket luring away potential talent and crowds started being hurled at the sport and its authorities. No one even seemed to realiz that cricket had long ceased to be a government aided sport, and the B.C.C.I. was the whole and sole care taker of it.

The fact that they blamed cricket for luring away the young talent was really ridiculous!

Imagine blaming someone for becoming successful! Blame the Tendulkars, Kumbles, Kamblies, Gangulies, for making young boys wanting to be like them, and young girls wanting to be with them! It blurred the line between insecurity and stupidity!

The money became larger, the Board more and more cunning in its ways. It knew now the art of making money. Yet, it never did anything to bring about the downfall of other sports.

In fact, the Board has recently started paying an annual amount to the farmer (Government of India) to take care of the rest of his sons!

But the ranting, it seems, will never stop. Not till another sport takes its place in the future, anyway.

That sport it seems may be football.

With the coming of cable television, English football caught the nation’s imagination. EPL chants rose with every season.

The effect can be felt at the junior level. But these tremors fail to shake up the system at a higher level.

There are various factors for this. Lack of any funds, for one! You can’t expect to make money by playing football or hockey in India. And cricket is blamed again for this!

Inexperienced, and people lacking in the knowledge of the sport are at its helm, which further compounds the problem for many talented youngsters. A lucky few manage to get away to a Manchester United or an Arsenal school through scouts, but the vast majority lacking in financial ability and a vision for the future, there’s no choice but to jump ship and get into a more conventional occupation.

It’s a sad state of affairs.

Ultimately, it’s time the Sports Ministry woke up and took charge of the situation, and politicians stopped making comments such as Jaswant Singh’s “With that kind of money, you could have built another cement factory” remarks!

Dr. M.S.Gill, the sports minister recently removed the fraudulent factors from the Indian Hockey Federation. Hopefully this will prove to be a turn around for Indian Hockey. Hopefully they can do the same with football and tennis. Hope is what is there for Indian sport.

But please, not at the cost of cricket!