3 reasons why Cricket is more popular than any other sport in India
Cricket is more popular than any other sport in India. Divided by so many religions and castes in our country, cricket is something which unites all of us. We celebrate every Indian victory as a festival. An Indian win brings joy to everyone and a loss brings despair.
Everyone is really attached to this sport in our country, so much so that most of us ignore all the other sports in our country.
Although in recent times the popularity of other sports has risen significantly, none of that is anywhere near to how popular cricket is.
So what are the reasons cricket is head and shoulders above any other sports in India in terms of popularity?
Here are the three reasons.
#1 Success
Not to undermine India's victories in any other sport, cricket is really the only sport where we've succeeded at the top level consistently from the start.
India has won literally everything there is to win in cricket. The Indian cricket team has won the ODI World Cup twice, T20 World Cup once and Champions Trophy twice. They have been, on a number of times, top of the ODI rankings, test rankings and T20 rankings. There isn't anything that I can think of that the Indian side hasn't achieved in cricket.
India has not been consistently on top in other sports. I'm not saying that the Indian team hasn't done well in other sports, we definitely have had our moments but nowhere near like cricket.
#2 1983 World Cup
India's victory in the 1983 World Cup defined India in becoming the cricket crazy nation it is right now. It defined India's sporting career in a fundamental way.
The win in the final match of the World Cup played against a dominant West Indian side that had conquered the world and had already won 2 consecutive World Cup was as big as it could get. Winning the World Cup against all the odds was probably the greatest achievement in the history of Indian cricket and it changed the course of Indian cricket forever.
That win transformed Indian cricket and sent it on an upswing that lasts to this day.
#3 Idols
Indian players such as Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli and many more have god like status among their fans. Their fans literally run into the ground to just touch their feet despite knowing they'll get into trouble for that.
There have always been idols for us to follow in cricket.
Idols like Kohli and Dhoni inspire and motivate all of us to work hard and to be passionate.
There have always been idols for us to follow in cricket. First, it was the likes of Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, then it was Sachin Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and now it has been Dhoni and Kohli.
All of them have fans who would do anything for these players.
These seemingly larger than life players have made millions and millions of fans around the country just drop everything else in their life and watch them play for India.