It’s bitter but very true that one single game blotting many others games in India. Western countries,even soccer is an obsession But other sports are also going excellent there.But Here in India Cricket fever overshadowed our national sport Hockey. There is no question of any debate that cricket is most loved sport in our country. Indians eat, sleep, talk and walk cricket.We all love our cricketers but we forgot easily our legends like Gagan Narang who won four Gold medals in Common Wealth Games2010, or Indian World Champion wrestler Sushil kumar has won the gold medal in FILA 2010 World Wrestling Championships or Olympic bronze medals won by tennis star Leander Paes (Atlanta, 1996), but Anil Kumble’s 10-wicket haul, Harbhajan’s hat-trick,Virender Sehwag’s 309 ,Yuvraj 6*6’s will be evergreen in memory.
Theoretically we all know that hockey is our national game but in practical vision its cricket maniac all over. What do you think ?
Economic times conducted a survey to find out who inspired the people in the field of sports:
43% people inspired by Sachin Tendulkar
35% people inspired by MS Dhoni
11% people inspired by Saina Nehwal
4% people inspired by Vijendra Singh
4% people inspired by Abhinav Bindra
A total of 78% people are inspired by cricketers! This explains the cricket fever in India. When we see shift in these inspiration models as we see in badminton, boxing and shooting, we will see more youngsters playing different sports.
Prize money, sponsorship and recognition are the 3 key drivers to select any sport. And cricket provides all these perks to aspiring athletes.
Cricket will continue to be a popular sport in India but for other sports to get close to this status, the respective authorities will need to invest in these 3 key drivers.
Out of a billion population, there are only a selective few non-cricket personalties recognized nationwide for their achievement in their respective sport. PV Sindhu, Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal, Leander Paes, Sunil Chettri, Phogat sisters, to name a few. But, such mass recognition is generally lacking in sports like hockey, swimming, basketball, volleyball, cycling, etc. As we produce legends or role models in these less popular sports, they will definitely get noticed and will attract athletes to these sports.
We can’t say cricket is over rated! It has it’s rightful place.
Though we can say that other sports are under appreciated. There could be two reasons…
Govt Apathy and poor infra. There would be poor quality sports, athletes and tournies due to this. This will make difficult for sports to catch public fancy.
India has still under developed sports market with limited finance. There simply isn’t enough money to support many sports. Things are changing and market is expanding. Rapidly proliferating sports leagues are proof to that. With economy expanding we will see more sports & tournies prospering.
I see that with time we will see increase in visibility and resultant popularity in coming times for other sports as well.
Completely agreed
" Prize money, sponsorship and recognition are the 3 key drivers to select any sport. And cricket provides all these perks to aspiring athletes."
