Saturday, February 02, 2008

India: 60 Years: 60 Words: [10] Cricket and other sports

India: 60 Years: 60 Words: [10] Cricket and other sports

[India has competed 60 years of independence and to mark this, I am presenting this series of Articles, about the words, that are meaning a lot for the progress of the country. If you feel I missed some thing [For listing of words see the first article “India: 60 Years: 60 Words”] do inform me at
premputar@gmail.com I will try to include that at the end of series]


Sporting arena is the only faculty where even after becoming the economic and commercial super power Indians will be legging behind the rest of the world. Individual Gold Medals is the unrealized dream of Indians since so many years. It was a time when India was the undisputed king of hockey and created many team and individual records, some of which are still a challenging achievement for others. As more and more bureaucrats and politicians started to change the hands in the administration of this national game so the playing standards started to decline. “Failure is born orphan” saying seems to be practices and today we are in the huge country have only a few astro trough a basic facility of modern hockey. Playing rules at international levels also proved for making the decline more and deeper as the concept of power hockey was not matching with the skills and talents of the Indians. Thanks God even all the unfavorable conditions not resulted in youth getting diversified from the game. A considerable good and fairly large chunk is of talented Indian youth still keeping the betel on and hopefully in near future India will regain the position of world champions in the hockey. Who can say it was not possible, if in the 80’s when Astro concept was introduced, might India opted for investing 100 carores in the hockey for preparing 100 such grounds, India might have the same status in hockey also which the Indians are having in the present cricketing world.

Unexpectedly India, under the inspiring and illustrating captaincy of Kapil Dev Nikhanj went on to win the 1983 ODI championship of the cricket beating the mighty West Indians. It is fact that this victory brought the glory for the nation and is the strongest reason of the present cricketing passion we Indians have but surely is also among the probable reasons of decline in the national game of hockey. Glamorous atmosphere and huge economic gains succeeded attracting the Indian youth for cricket, most than any other sporting faculty. The natural result of all this is though India emerges as the strongest cricketing nation but went on to become poor competitor in most of other sports. The fact can be reflected from the India’s world raking [above 100] in the less expensive game of football.

Fortunately India has huge population and diversified cultural atmosphere and habits hence the hope lamp is kept on the burning and few talents like Amritraj brothers, Pace, Bhupati, Sania Mirza [Tennis], P.T. Usha, Anju Bobby george, Milkha Singh [Athletics], Karna Maleshwari [Power weight lifting], Captain Rathord, Abhinav Bindra, Jaspal Rana [shooting], Get Sethi, Pankaj Advani [Billiards and Snooker], Vishawnathan Anand [Chess] and Bachendari Paul [Mountaineering], Prakash Padukone, Aparna Popat, Phullela Gopichand [Badminton], Dingko Sing [Boxing], Arjun Atwal [Golf], Bula Chowdhury [Swimming], Chetan Babur [Table Tennis], chuni Goswami, Baichung Bhutia [Football], Dola Banjree, Limba Ram [Archery], Kartiyekan [Motor Racing] etc. [the list includes many many more names] has not only shown the diversified sporting talent present in the country but also proved to be the oil for this hope lamp of Indians. The good thing of these 60 years that Indians started to realize that supremacy in the sporting faculties is most important aspect of world leaders in the modern times and the progress in the direction is the indicative of India emerging as the strong sporting nation in near future.

Infra structural and other sporting facilities are developing in the country at vigorous rate and hopefully in near short future India might go for becoming the host for the Olympic games, which surely will prove the most needed inspiration and will lead the country to turn into strongest sporting nation and lead the rest of world. Changed attitude of Indians is also reflecting from the recently released Hindi movies like the Iqbal and Chak De India based on the sports.

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