Around this time last year; entire nation was hooked up on Cricket. India was hosting ICC Cricket world-Cup after 15 years. Memories of 1996 were not all that great. 'We are going to win it' everyone believed, even before the tournament started. And we did it. We actually won the ICC Cricket World-cup after 28 years. The celebrations after semis and finals were awesome. People came out on roads and went completely crazy. It was not just about those 11 players out there; every individual in India felt it was their win.
It's not that India has not done well in sports other than Cricket. Vishwanathan Anand has topped Chess; Leander Paes has won 49 doubles titles in Tennis, and who can forget that Bronze medal in 1996 Olympics; Saina Nehwal became the first Indian to win BWF super series Title, and doing great in Badminton; Abhinav Bindra won Olympic gold medal in Shooting; Vijender Kumar won Olympic Bronze in boxing; Sushil Kumar won Olympic Bronze in Wrestling.. to name a few. People were happy with their achievements too; but the madness that Cricket world-cup win got on us was something else.
Many think this is media's fault; they are not giving enough coverage to other sports and not glorifying achievements of other sports persons. Well, I do not completely agree. Media coverage would certainly encourage players to pursue certain sport as career may be.. but How can media make some sport popular is beyond me. Personally, I tried following hockey but could not. It just didn't click. On the contrary; after England series mishap I wanted to quit following Cricket and I could not. It's quite unfortunate for other sports not to have Fame similar to Cricket in our country. But then, instead of cribbing about that let's just appreciate 'Cricket' as a sport which has successfully topped popularity charts for so many years :-)
It's not that India has not done well in sports other than Cricket. Vishwanathan Anand has topped Chess; Leander Paes has won 49 doubles titles in Tennis, and who can forget that Bronze medal in 1996 Olympics; Saina Nehwal became the first Indian to win BWF super series Title, and doing great in Badminton; Abhinav Bindra won Olympic gold medal in Shooting; Vijender Kumar won Olympic Bronze in boxing; Sushil Kumar won Olympic Bronze in Wrestling.. to name a few. People were happy with their achievements too; but the madness that Cricket world-cup win got on us was something else.
Many think this is media's fault; they are not giving enough coverage to other sports and not glorifying achievements of other sports persons. Well, I do not completely agree. Media coverage would certainly encourage players to pursue certain sport as career may be.. but How can media make some sport popular is beyond me. Personally, I tried following hockey but could not. It just didn't click. On the contrary; after England series mishap I wanted to quit following Cricket and I could not. It's quite unfortunate for other sports not to have Fame similar to Cricket in our country. But then, instead of cribbing about that let's just appreciate 'Cricket' as a sport which has successfully topped popularity charts for so many years :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment