The cricket delusion

Picking up from the recent problems in Indian hockey, Karan Madhok on SLAM Online looks at cricket's shadow over other sports in India. The problem is the fact that all the glorious stories and figures in India belong to cricket, and if Indians do strike lucky and succeed in another sport, the successes are either quickly forgotten, or the newspapers find it tough to squeeze in the news amongst the barrage of daily cricket stories that the Indian audiences are overdosed with.

With all the attention and finances thrown around by the broadcasters, promoters, media and government authorities to make cricket the most lucrative business in India, there is little left room left to share with other sports in the country. It is perhaps no surprise then, that India, a country of a billion and a half people, has won a staggering ONE (1) individual gold in the history of the Olympic Games, and that too went to the shooter Abhinav Bindra at Beijing 2008, who was rich enough to self-finance his training, equipment and success, free from the meddling hands of the government. The Olympics, obviously, doesn’t feature cricket, or India would have raked in the medals and the positive vibes.