IS CRICKET KILLING OTHER SPORTS IN INDIA?

 

 From Sampath’s Desk:

 



 

IS CRICKET KILLING OTHER SPORTS IN INDIA?

 

Physical exercises and exertions tone up one's body and mind. They help one stay healthy and fit. If regulated as sets of organized activity with in-built components of orderliness, competitiveness and performance measurement element in terms of quantified units of score, it becomes sports called individual games and/or team games. For team games, the number of players depends on the volume of exertions and activities involved.

 

There are many games played at local, national and international levels. The higher the level, the greater is the skill-set required and degree of performance of players involved who showcase their talents as individuals and as part of the team. As a team player one has to meet two objectives i.e. put up his/her best individual performance and strive hard to take concerted actions in tandem with other team-mates to achieve the common and collective goal of team’s victory.

 

All team games have elements of players’ individual performances besides team-work features like cooperation, coordination, networking, common endeavour, instant decision-making, and swinging into speedy actions, ‘never-buckle under pressure’ mindset, perseverance, and synchronizing individual efforts towards securing team’s common goal of final success. The irony is that one or two games have only so far stolen the limelight and are being given much importance and publicity and remain in the thick of the media glare and hype. I think readers guess it right. Yes, it is Cricket that is given a special treatment. There is no gainsaying the fact that there is over-craze for this game in India where a majority of people don’t even seem to think that there are other games as well involving competitive, captivating and pulsating performances of individual players and team’s collective performance.

 

Needless to say, the media makes a more-than-deserving hype of Cricket played at the international level in different countries in different formats like Test, ODI, T20, IPL, etc. all with huge monetary implications as if there is no other sport worth following or promoting. There is certainly a positive bias and tilt towards Cricket making it appear as though it is the only game worth the hype and uproar and in the process seeking to eclipse other games. Overindulgence indeed!

 

If one were interested, he/she can keep his/her eyes glued to the TV set for viewing live telecasts including repeat telecasts, highlights, excerpts, etc. of Cricket played almost daily, in one format or another between any two countries and at venues around the world. There are so many sports TV channels to telecast Cricket matches of different formats played in different countries, live or otherwise. There is certainly overdose of Cricket in some countries especially India. One can't even imagine a sports TV channel that doesn't given prominence to Cricket. It has become an extravaganza to host Cricket and get lucrative returns. Money will be in full flow when it comes to Cricket, going by the expenses incurred for construction of stadiums, diverse formats of the sport in which it is organized, and frequent periodicity of the game played including number of tournaments being conducted from time to time, the five-star hotel accommodation arranged for players and their remuneration, prize-money/awards/trophies for victorious teams and best performing individual player(s), not to speak of whopping monetary bids during auctions for individual players offered by different corporate majors, commercial establishments/industries, tinsel world celebrities, etc. to sponsor players/tournaments especially for the IPL. There is a beeline of advertisers seeking prime time-slots for their commercials to be beamed during the live telecasts of the matches.

 

What is stressed here is that other games and their players too deserve increased recognition, appreciation, encouragement, support and patronage from all quarters.

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

2/1/2010

 

(This article was published in THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS on 8.1.2020)

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