Having beaten the stress from the past 5 weeks for the exams, I thought I will catch up with some news on the other side of the globe in my beloved home country. I logged into the online newspaper. I saw a humongous dedicated news edition that only had articles written on the Cricket World Cup which India won in 1983. I was a bit surprised at the entire spotlight it has received. I then thought to myself, is there the existence of responsible journalism anymore? Well, I do accept the fact that it was an achievement considering the circumstances that we won the cup and the unprecedented glory that was part of the package. I do have regard to all the cricketers who represented the country and their contribution to reaching and getting our hands on the penultimate trophy of the sport. With due regards and respects to all part of the squad, I think we have to look beyond those old times and move on. For how long can we just bask on the past glory of winning the cup, about a couple of dozen years back and have valuable money and time spent on its celebrations. If my memory serves me right, I think there is always a mention of the country winning the cricket world cup back in those golden ages when the topic of sport is discussed in India. I don’t deny the fact that it is an achievement; my only disappointment is that why most other sports in India don’t get the same amount of credit and regard. Why are all the other sports neglected and pushed to the way side and its only cricket that keeps the country running. By being the most lucrative cricket body in the world, this is definite proof that the BCCI definitely has some extra pocket money to spend.
Why don’t we remember Leander and Mahesh winning the Wimbledon trophy? I will be surprised if any of our country men or people in the sports decision making arena remember when India won the gold in the Asian games or their splendid performance in the recently concluded Sultan Azlan Shah Trophy.
The cricketers, whether one was a yesteryear player or a current player have received enough monetary benefits and lead comfortable lives. In the pretext of celebrating these occasions of anniversaries of each of our significant wins, there is more money than asked for which is being pumped into their bank accounts.
We have Geeth Sethi and Pankaj Advani who are world champions in Billiards and some notable champion Badminton players like Arvind Bhat and Kanitkar. But the media does not seem to care and nor do the central sport bodies.
I really don’t understand where the root of the problem is present for this kind of discrimination that occurs in sports in India. It may be partly due to the individual administrating bodies that have only the vested interests of its board members and its internal politicking on their agenda than serious sports promotion. I am indeed witness to one of them that occurred to two most promising lawn tennis players in Karnataka.
This celebration now has made me a critic of the saying that history repeats itself. In cricketing terms, it is yet to repeat and we still live and muster pride, courage and solace in the history rather than looking into the future. Cricket is a minority among global games when compared to football, basketball, tennis and others that are played virtually all over the globe, not to mention athletics. With all the resources poured into cricket, I think their performances should have been the top among all world teams and by now should have won the world cup times over and again. India with more than enough green bills in its association should have in my opinion fared much better than its present performances.
What hurts me most is that the media too is always cricket centric and portrays it as being the ultimate sport that man has ever played and it’s the next best thing that has happened to the human race after sliced bread. Is the ratio of expenditure to performance justified in cricket in India? I remember an incident narrated by Geeth Sethi when he led a contingent of sportsmen other than cricketers to the then Prime Minister. I believe the national hockey team mates were filling out a petition to the PM to provide them with jobs. This is an utter disgrace to the national game of India.
Cricketers rob others professionals of their jobs. They have virtually replaced all the models and actors in endorsements and television commercials. Even a trivial ramp show is not spared. Then there is this whole new debate on the recently concluded IPL which in my opinion was the most expensive movie made on this globe. It was total apathy towards the tax payers’ money that was used up to provide power, security and other expenditures for some mega event which was absolutely unwarranted. The revenues generated should have been shared among the owners of the club and the state. This arrangement then would have negated the expenditures incurred for using the state machinery for these events.
I come from a country where for the large section of the population doesn’t know where their next meal is going to be coming. And here we have some rich blokes and their mates spending these insane amounts of money on virtually nothing beneficial. We have problems in food, health care and education; we don’t need expensive events like these.
The media should rather focus on issues like the food crisis, climate change and other more pressing issues rather than giving a subject like this which do not matter to our existence on this planet. Sadly folks, in reality we cannot breathe, eat and drink cricket and please get present to it as quickly as possible.
Can we still call it tennis elbow? You know Sachin Tendulkar had it…..I thought someone with an unexplained passion and dedication to cricket may want to call it something else, maybe “Cricket elbow”
Child – “mom is school closed tomorrow?
Mom – “why are you asking this question?”
Child – “ you know it is the 60th anniversary of the Indian cricket world cup win, 17th anniversary of the sahara cup win, 32nd of the reliance cup………………{and the list continues}
