LET'S BAN CRICKET

Today is a historic day for India. The 25 year old Abhinav Bindra won gold in the men’s 10metre air rifle in the Olympic Games at Beijing. India is winning a gold medal after 28 years, after the glorious period when our hockey team reigned supreme. What is more important is that this is India’s first individual gold ever. Bindra, who is an Arjun awardee, was pitted against the world champion and beat him, which is no mean feat. He also caught up by two points in the final round, with a total of 700 points.
India is ecstatic. Congratulations are pouring in from all quarters. The PM, the President have all congratulated the young shooter. People are celebrating on Chandigarh’s streets; TV channels are interviewing his parents who gracefully give their son all the credit for his hard work; state governments are offering him 5lakhs to 1crore rupees. I’m sure there are commercial endorsements and more awards from the Indian government on the way too.
This victory raises various questions regarding Indian sports. These questions have been asked a number of times before, but since the answers are yet to come, the disturbing queries remain. How can a large country like India not produce promising athletes and medals at the Olympics year after year? Hockey was lucky in the 70s; Leander Paes and Karnam Malleshwari gave us the Bronze, while Rathore made us proud with silver; and today we have Bindra with gold. That is it. For a country with 1 billion people we have only a handful who wins against the odds. And the odds are mostly at home.
Most athletes come from poor backgrounds. Though they have talent, the training, the equipment all requires professional grounds and coaches. Most of all it requires money. We are not a poor nation. Yet we do not have the money to spend on sports. The old adage of all work and no play is deeply entrenched in people’s minds. It seems especially so in the Indian Parent’s and the Indian Government’s mind. A good example is the movie Chak De where girls are discouraged to play hockey both by their families and the Sports Committee. But as in all Bollywood movies, the girls’ team wins in the end. The case is very different in real life.
But India is willing to spend crores in sports, which is in cricket. That is where the hitch lies. Cricket is not a sport in India, it is akin to religion. If the Beatles said they are bigger than Jesus, well, cricket is greater than the God of the thousands of Gods worshipped in India. Twenty-twenty, IPL, one day matches, test matches, all this ‘bogus’ is not sport, it is entertainment. This fact seems especially controversial and debated since IPL.
Cricket is also a slow, meandering, boring, colonial game. As John Abraham’s character in the movie Kabul Express aptly puts it, cricket is nothing but 22 men scratching their crotches on the field. Cricket occupies prime time in the Indian media and the Indian psyche. And the harm it does to India and Indian sports seems almost beyond repair. It is a hegemonic game, enchanting and hypnotizing people. It swallows up people’s time, energy, and money. Worse, it is the main cause for India’s repeated poor performance in the Olympic Games or any other International Sports event. If the money and energy spent on cricket and its hyped and highly publicized players were spent on spotting and training talent in other sports, India would have many more Abhinav Bindras.
But will this really happen? Will the ‘Indian crowd’ ever tire of cricket? Will the sports authorities and sponsors want to invest in less popular and glamorous sports like rowing, boxing or swimming? Will Indians appreciate a synchronized dive as much as a ‘fixed’ game of cricket? Well, these questions will take time to be answered. Till then, let’s ban cricket.
11-08-2008