A Deccan Vision perspective on India’s sporting arena
INDIAN SPORTS HAVE MORE TO REJOICE THAN JUST CRICKET
Yes, indeed! Cricket in India is a huge craze, more so, because of the size of financial investments the game attracts being the richest sport in the country. The International Cricket Council (ICC) shares the largest part of its revenue with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Indian Premier League (IPL) run by BCCI is one of the wealthiest sports leagues in the World. In the financial year 2023-24, BCCI earned Rs. 18,700 crore (US$2.2 billion) and paid Rs. 4,298 crore (US$510 million) in taxes for the financial year 2022-23.
India’s recent T-20 ICC 2024 World Cup victory has made all of us highly euphoric. Earlier, similar achievements through victories in the 1983 Oneday ICC World Cup, T-20 ICC 2007 World Cup, and 2011 Oneday ICC World Cup undoubtedly established India’s global cricketing supremacy. The nationwide celebrations on all the occasions were fully justified though, but then, should we confine our hype around cricket alone? Did we not have seen similar heroics in other sports disciplines in the past?
Despite cricket's several contributions, India’s own national sport, hockey, since ages has given its most coveted pride of place in the sports world. Our Men’s hockey has been the most successful sport for India, with 13 medals so far, including eight golds, followed by wrestling with eight medals. India’s best-ever Olympic performance came at Tokyo 2020, where the nation won seven medals, including one gold.
In this context, I would advise all sports enthusiasts to please read one of the then best-selling sports publications, Melville de Mello’s masterpiece, “Reaching for Excellence: The Glory and the Decay of Sport in India” (Kalyani Publishers, 1979). In the book, the author brilliantly highlighted the heroics of the ‘Hockey Wizard’, Major Dhyan Chand, and his teammates who helped reach the crowning glories for India with the uninterrupted triumphs of Olympic Hockey gold from 1928 (Amsterdam) to 1956 (Melbourne).
Even when Television had not become one of the most essential companions in the then-Indian household, we all grew up listening to those mesmerizing radio commentary voices from experts like Surajit Sen, Melville de-Souza, Jasdev Singh, and other commentators alike. It was indeed a thrilling experience to hear such genius commentators narrating every moment of how India won the 1975 Hockey World Cup, played in Malaysia.
In the just concluded Paris 2024 Olympics, most Indians could not help but understand why in the overall medals tally, we have to always search from the bottom of the list to find out where we really stood. India ended its campaign in Paris with six medal winners and many near misses with no gold, one less than our best-ever tally of seven medals at the previous Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
A strong contingent of 117 Indian athletes competed for medals and sporting glory at the just concluded Paris Olympics 2024 and ended its campaign with six medals, pending Vinesh Phogat's verdict, at the marquee event, including one silver in Javelin throw, and five bronze, 3 in Shooting and 1 each in Wrestling and Hockey.
Despite of these achievements, India faced significant disappointments in Paris by narrowly missing out on six potential medals, with athletes finishing fourth in their events, including Lakshya Sen, Mirabai Chanu, and Manu Bhaker, who came close to securing a third medal.
Vinesh Phogat’s disqualification just before a historic final also added to the nation’s woes. Indians participated in 69 medal events across 16 sports, including archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, equestrian, golf, hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, and tennis.
In international sports events like the Asiad, Commonwealth, Olympics, World Championships, and even Paralympics, our sportspersons have done exceedingly well compared to earlier years. However, our very own Neeraj Chopra achieved something that our all-time great sports celebrities like Milkha Singh or P. T. Usha or the likes had missed – an individual Olympic gold in an athletics event.
India also found the most coveted mentions of superiority in Lawn Tennis through the likes of champions Ramanathan Krishnan, Rohan Bopanna, and Sania Mirza. In field and track events, we excelled on the world stage through Flying Shikh Milkha Singh, P. T. Ushaa, Shani Abraham, etc.
Due to our over-enthusiasm and bias shown for cricket, we seem to have overlooked the decades-long immense contributions from the then stalwarts like Wilson Jones, Michel Ferreira, and Pankaj Advani who had been for years World Champions in billiards/snooker. In the Maharaja’s games chase, Vishwanathan Anand, Pragyananda, and many others from India proved themselves world-beaters on many occasions.
Let’s take the games of soccer. Besides the sensational contributions from star duos like Baichung Bhutia and Sunil Chhetri, India had boosted its soccer power through luminaries like Gostha Pal, P. K. Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Peter Thangaraj, Mewalal, Neville D'Souza, Jernail Singh and Yusuf Khan, some of whom were in the proud team that won the soccer gold in the Jakarta Asiad, 1962.
In the recent past, our wrestling has been in the news for all the wrong reasons and presently the game seems to be on a sprawl. Since the matter is still sub-judice, any comment on the administration of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) would be uncalled for. The government is found to be in a fix and also seems to have forgotten the well-known adage, “Not only must one be fair; one also must appear to be fair”.
Perhaps today, the malice in this and also in other sports, late, have become a monopoly of politicians across political parties and bureaucrats over the running of these bodies. Once the selection processes of our sportspersons are made absolutely transparent and bias-free, our medal hopes in international circuits can reach even much greater heights.
Fast forward to the 1998 Asian Games. I happened to watch the Asiad Hockey final in Hyderabad wherein India clinched the gold medal having won the match played in the Lal Bahadur Stadium at Basheerbagh. Out of sheer joy, I had preferred to have a cup of tea at an Iranian cafe close by. While sipping the drink, I, out of much enthusiasm, shared India’s win with a person sitting beside me. He was thrilled, but unfortunately, he spoilt the fun with his query in local lingo, “Achchhi bat hai yaro. Hum kitte wicktaan pe jeete?” (Very good news friend. By how many wickets we won?).
It was indeed the height of my surprise. Then and even now, many subconscious hesitations apart, many of us still persist with our cricket hangover!
By Prof. (Dr.) Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya
(The writer is an Emeritus Professor of Management and an independent Political analyst)
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