Not once but innumerable times I have encountered this argument. Yet I know this is an undying question that lingers in the minds of many. Most recently, yesterday (February 1, 2010) I had gone to one of Chennai's best roof top coffee shops Casa Piccolo with a couple of my friends when this issue popped up once again!
The Hero Honda ad says it all. “Mein is bar nahin kheloonga. Stadium mein bait ke match dehkoonga. Janda bhi le aaoonga. Aur India India chilaoonga. Game ki tension mein nakhoon chabaoonga. Face pe thiranga bhi lagaoonga. Hockey World Cup India mein ho raha hai, aur mein apne team ke saarey match dekhne jaoonga. Aap aogey na? Mein inthazaar karoonga. Phir dil dho hockey ko..,” says Virender Sehwag. This ad shows the plight of India’s national sport hockey’s quest for recognition; attention from the likes of administrators, sponsors, broadcasters and fans. Sadly this is the situation for any other sports in our country with the only exception being cricket.
Now the issue is who we blame for the awful situation of non-cricket sports in the country? And how much of blame credit goes to the game of cricket? I have heard and seen many people arguing that cricket is just a money spinning game; the sponsors only want to put their money on cricket and no other sport. Here I want one to understand that the five pillars of a sport are players, administrators, sponsors, broadcasters and fans. And the cohesive function of these elements is necessary for a sport to gain popularity.
Let’s analyze the present state of cricket and hockey. The Players are doing reasonably well in both cricket and hockey winning a few tournaments. Also one can consider the fact that a sportsperson always put his best foot forward when representing his country. Fans for hockey are not many as compared to cricket, however we saw decently packed stadiums during champions trophy matches played in Chennai a few year’s back, where most of these fans are traditionalist. The fan following also has to do with the team’s performance. It is not always that a cricket match attracts the best of crowds. The seven home matches of IPL team Deccan Chargers in 2008 was a classic example of it, where empty stadiums marred the charm of Twenty20 cricket.
Next in line are sponsors and broadcasters. Sahara is the team sponsor for both Indian cricket and hockey teams. Most of these hockey tournaments are covered on television, if not ESPN – Star sports at least Doordarshan does. Here the money pumped in by ESPN and Nimbus for telecasting cricket matches are sky high compared to the sum offered to telecast a hockey match. And in turn a part of this sum goes into the development of the sport. Agree. This can only happen when the team is performing well. Performance on field will allow the administrators to approach broadcasters and demand more money for awarding them the telecast rights who in turn depend on various sponsors to earn some profit out of the venture. Now how does a sponsor like Sahara or Airtel or Nike decide to sign a deal or not? Deals signed with broadcasters depend on the TVR ratings that directly depend on the fan following of the sport.
In such a scenario, one can easily blame the other for the failure of the sport as a whole. So what do one do about it? Here the administrator is the nuclei, as they are the ones who are responsible to bring the other elements together and run the show.
Hockey India, the national board was blamed by the Indian hockey men and women team for not paying their dues. An issue that made the headlines for about a week came to halt when the team sponsor Sahara interfered to shell out Rs 1 crore from their pocket. The incident happening just a month before the World Cup is not a good sign for any sport. Making use of the situation to get some attention was UP Chief Minister Mayawati and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company who made statements saying they will gift certain amount if Indian team wins the World Cup. All this can be avoided when you have strong administrators in place.
Similarly there was a blame game between India’s only Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra and the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) on the former’s name being left out of the list of participants for the Common Wealth Games in New Delhi in 2010. As a sports enthusiast, I stand clueless about India’s commitment to host Common Wealth Games in October, as the construction of the sports village near Delhi has reached just the half way mark. Not surprisingly the sports ministry and the Indian Olympic Association have maintained silence in this regard.
Coming back to cricket, the game was fortunate to have able and committed administrators in the likes of the late Raj Singh Dungapur, IS Bindra, Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar and Lalit Modi to name a few. Irrespective of the differences they had between them they always stayed committed to the game of cricket. It was Raj bhai, Bindra and Dalmiya who were instrumental in bring the World Cup to India in 1996. It was then the day/night matches were played to bring in more spectators into the stadium. Similarly it was during the Dalmiya region when India evolved as the financial muscle of world cricket. It was the combined effort of these great minds that brought the sponsors into the sport, made the broadcasters pay heavy sum for telecast rights. Similarly, though India on field didn’t win many matches, they had individual stars in Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly who kept the flag flying once a while. Some of the notable wins in the later 90s were the Titan Cup in 1996, Sahara Cup against Pakistan in 1997 in Toronto, Sharjha Cup in 1998. These apart, India always remained a strong side at home.
It was never a memorable start for Indian cricket to the new millennium which was rocked with match-fixing scandals, however the BCCI had proficient personality in AC Muthiah, then the board president who successfully dealt with these and made sure the new team was in place. It was during that time Sourav Ganguly was appointed captain, India got its first foreign coach in John Wright and lots of youngsters inducted into the team in the form of Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Harbajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh. Today each of them is a backbone of the present Indian team in their own right! Certainly a part of the credit goes to the Muthiah administration.
The present situation in Pakistan cricket is a classic example of how important is an administration in the running of sport. Too many internal politics and hate within is no good as cricket in Pakistan is next to being isolated.
From then to what Indian team is today, both on and off the field with a shrewd leadership of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Lalit Modi is history. For any game to survive and later to become popular, a system needs to be in place. This can only happen if an able administration is in place. However, back to where we began, it is no fault of cricketers’ or the game of cricket – not only mine but India’s secular religion - to be blamed for the poor state of other sports in our country.
