Only success can improve the popularity of Sport in India
India – crowned World Champions of Cricket in 2011
Much has been said and written about the sway cricket has over the Indian psyche, how cricket has grown to marginalise every other sport in this great nation. Hockey has been losing it's prominence, athletics never had any real ground support and dont even get me started on the abysmal administration of football here.
But having said all this, have we ever really thought about why cricket is so important to us? It's a simple enough reason as it were. We are bloody good at it.
World beaters in cricket
We are current world ODI champions, winners of the inaugral T20 championship, no.3 in Test cricket and host to the most popular domestic league in the cricketing world, the IPL.
For a country that is spectacularly devoid of sporting triumphs, this comes as an ego-boost of epic proportions. Pre-1982, cricket was important to the Indians, but not much more than hockey, a game at which , for years preceding that time-frame, we were nigh unbeatable. When India won in hockey however, there was a touch of inevitability to it. The genius of Dhyan Chand, Roop Singh and Balbir Singh Sr. to name a few, had ensured it.
But in 1983, something happened, in a sport where we were not considered to be anywhere near the best, in a final that had been written off as a one sided mismatch between the over-achieving Indians and the imperial, unstoppable, West Indian juggernaut, Kapil Dev and his boys produced magic.
This isn't about that match however. It's about that magic.
The magic that happened when we beat the world's best cricket team (arguably the greatest ever), the aura of power and the exhilaration of triumph that the famous triumph had inspired cemented the seeds of criketing, nay, religious fervour in the minds of every Indian.
The fall of hockey and volleyball
It did not help that hockey had begun it's ascent to a global sport with the introduction of astro-turf, something that triggered off one of the greatest falls from grace in sporting history (We are yet to reach a major final on the surface). Nobody wanted to play or watch hockey any more, we were losing and we were being thrashed left, right and centre.
But we were getting better and better at cricket and the game never really looked back from there. The Sachin Tendulkars and Rahul Dravids, and now the MSDs ensured the blooming of that religion.
And it's not just hockey, in the '70s through the '80s the most popular game in Kerala was volleyball. And all because of one man. Jimmy George. The diminutive Malayalee (he was incredibly short compared to international volleyball players), was one of the greatest and most internationally acclaimed sportspersons India has produced and in his prime was considered the best volleyball player in the world.
Enjoying tremendous success in the Italian domestic league, he had an amazing fan following in that country. Till the tragedy of his accident cut short what surely would have been a legendary career and life, Indian volleyball scaled unparalleled heights on his back.
But no one stepped up to truly replace him, to propel us into that world-beating category we so desperately thirst for. Nowadays nobody plays volleyball the way we did when Jimmy George was alive and spiking.
Vishwanathan Anand and Saina Nehwal – isolated success stories
On the other side of the spectrum, Indian chess was nowhere on the global, or domestic, scene till a soft spoken, bespectacled, full-sleeved Tamil Brahmin stepped up to challenge and beat the Garry Kasparovs and the Vladimir Kramniks of the world. Today, Vishwanathan Anand is undoubtedly the best chess player in the world. Koneru Humpy, Tania Sachdev, Sasikaran, SS Ganguly, so many young boys and girls took to the game, successfully so, just because Vishy proved to India we could beat anyone in the world.
Next time, when another Cricket World Cup (T20, ODI, it doesn't matter) tumbles around in all it's might and fancy, inside all the brouhaha of how much we are sick of cricket, and how much we hate it, and how long it is, we will support our team because we know, somehwere deep down, that we have the players, the team, to be World champions.
Saina Nehwal, like the Indian cricket team, gets the completed, unadulterated support of the nation, because we know, there's a chance she can win. We know, there's a chance, however small, that she can beat the Chinese at their own game. Backed by the simple knowledge that she has.
Indian hockey, or Indian football or Indian athletics will never enjoy this religious following till someone, or some people, step up, elevate their game beyond the plane of the mere mortals, and make us world-beaters.
Success begets Fanfare
Yes,we can moan all we want about lack of support and infrastructure and the hateful sluggishness of the various Indian sporting administrations, and rightfully so.
But never underestimate what one dedicated, utterly disciplined individual can do to change all this. Like Abebe Bikila did when he won the marathon barefoot in 1960 and inspired Ethiopia, nay, the whole of Africa, to run to glory. Like when Jesse Owens overcame unparalleled racial prejudice to become one of the greatest Olympians of all time, paving the way for all future African-American superstars.
Sure, we may not have athletes of the same level of awe-inspiring talent but all it takes is ONE to trigger of national support and jubilation. Just ask Vishy. However, let us be very clear about this, even with Vishy, if we don't have champions of his ilk after the great man retires, chess will die down, just like hockey did when nobody stepped up to pick the mandate of the great wizards of yore, just like volleyball did when nobody replaced the indomitable Jimmy.
We are a simple folk. We will cry and moan and whine, but we will religiously support anyone who can step out onto a sporting arena, go toe-to-toe with the world's best and come out on top. For only a champion can hope to become our God.
You see, our religion is pretty darn simple. Victory is our Religion.