{"id":1348,"date":"2016-06-28T22:22:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T22:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2016-06-28T22:22:53","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T22:22:53","slug":"sports-sportsperson-cricket-league-ipl-icc-bcci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1348","title":{"rendered":"The League of Forgotten Sportspeople"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\u00a0\n

W<\/span>hen the IPL broadcast rights are sold off to STAR India at a BCCI-organised auction for <\/p>\u20b9<\/span>16 crores, you know the state of cricket in the country is perfectly healthy. Resources are bountiful, audience demand remains high, and administrators and players are all making money. Problems, if they do arise, are insignificant. Allow me to illustrate.<\/span>\n\nOnce upon a time in Indian cricket \u2013 or maybe it was just a month ago \u2013 the team travelled to Sri Lanka for a series as favourites. But all was not well in the kingdom. After their <\/span>public divorce<\/span><\/a> from coach Anil Kumble, the next in line for the Indian cricket team\u2019s ire was their official kit sponsor, Nike. In between back-to-back victories over Sri Lanka at the ongoing ODI series, news broke that the squad was unhappy with the substandard quality of their kits. The boys complained to BCCI\u2019s Council of Administrators, presumably led by a fuming Virat Kohli, who I like to imagine would have thrown his jersey on the floor while yelling, \u201cBakwaas hai, bhenchod!\u201d <\/span>\n\nOf course, these are the nation\u2019s darlings we\u2019re talking about, so the response was swift and effective, unlike, say, that of Mumbai\u2019s municipal corporation during last week\u2019s flash flood. Nike sent down prototypes of a new kit for the players to test out and offer feedback on. After all, they\u2019ve paid for the privilege of having their logo appear under the shadow of Ishant Sharma\u2019s enormous Adam\u2019s apple until 2020, and they don\u2019t want anything to jeopardise that. The Indian team went back to winning matches, Nike went back to working on the new kits, and everyone lived happily ever after.<\/span>\n\nUnfortunately, real life is not a fairytale. It only starts to resemble one when you\u2019re playing cricket for India. But if you\u2019re a sportsperson with dreams beyond having <\/span>Sushant Singh Rajput<\/span><\/a> or Emraan Hashmi play you in a biopic, then sorry, but you\u2019re shit outta luck. Only the Indian cricket team can afford to complain about their kit and have it replaced. This is the same kit where a replica jersey costs upward of <\/span>\u20b9<\/span>3,000 and is coveted by every cricket fan under the age of 16 \u2013 the product of a sponsorship of approximately <\/span>\u20b9<\/span>370 crore. <\/span>\n\nMeanwhile, other athletes and sportspeople in the country keep yearning for a small piece of that pie. But as we\u2019ve seen in <\/span>wrestling<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>boxing<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>hockey<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>badminton<\/span><\/a>, tennis, or <\/span>any sport<\/span><\/a>, our country\u2019s athletes have the talent to excel. This is why it\u2019s depressing to see their disciplines being given the stepchild treatment by governing bodies.<\/span>\n

Cricketers don\u2019t experience even a fraction of the apathy that\u2019s become tragically mundane for other sports<\/blockquote>\nThe litany of offences is almost as long as MSG <\/span>Baba<\/span><\/a> Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singhji Insan\u2019s credit roll in his films, so we\u2019ll just browse through some of the highlights. How about India\u2019s own League of Forgotten Gentlemen & Women, made up of sportspersons who once brought glory to the country, only to live out the rest of their lives slipping through the cracks of public memory? <\/span>\n\nTake <\/span>KD Jadhav<\/span><\/a>, a wrestler who won the country\u2019s first individual Olympic medal. In 1952, he brought home a bronze medal for the country. In 2017, his angry son talks of throwing it away, as his father\u2019s legacy is forgotten. Still, Jadhav got to go to the Olympics and win. Which his fellow wrestler <\/span>Vishal Kumar Verma<\/span><\/a> will never experience, because the national-level wrestler was fatally electrocuted trying to pump water out of a flooded stadium in Ranchi this month. That\u2019s a tale of two wrestlers who lived decades apart, but were equally neglected by their administrators.<\/span>\n\nAh, the administrators! A rogue\u2019s gallery of men in safari suits who are somehow holding the reins of sporting institutions across the country, despite looking like they\u2019re allergic to exercise. I wish a sedentary lifestyle were the only accusation that could be levelled against Indian sports administrators, but sadly, my wish will never be granted. It\u2019s true, the criminal record of members of the <\/span>Indian Olympic Association<\/span><\/a> (IOA) was the reason our athletes couldn\u2019t compete under the national flag at the 2014 Olympics. <\/span>\n\nCricketers don\u2019t experience even a fraction of the apathy that\u2019s become tragically mundane for other sports. On one hand you have Dhoni\u2019s conquering heroes enjoying a victory parade in an open-top bus, and then you have another World Cup-winning team, the Indian women\u2019s kabaddi team, having to take rickshaws from the airport after winning the global tournament. Kohli\u2019s team can complain about their fancy, expensive kits being an inconvenience, but at least they aren\u2019t being put up in partially constructed buildings like participants at the National Para-Athletic Championship.<\/span>\n\nBut really, it would be sententious of me to put the blame on external factors, when the truth is \u2013 we are not a nation that encourages sport. Try and remember how many times you\u2019ve heard grandparents and relatives tell you, \u201cPadhoge likhoge toh hoge nawaab. Kheloge koodoge toh hoge kharaab.\u201d <\/span>\n\nI propose a revision to this bit of folk wisdom. Instead of crushing the sporting dreams of kids across India, let\u2019s at least try and guide them in a more pragmatic direction.<\/span> \u201cCricket kheloge toh hoge kamiyaab. Aur kuch kheloge, toh hoge barbaad.\u201d<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are not a nation that encourages sport. How many times have you relatives tell you, \u201cPadhoge likhoge toh hoge nawaab. Kheloge koodoge toh hoge kharaab\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[394],"tags":[2263,449,2264,397,2265,353,2266],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-bcci","tag-cricket","tag-icc","tag-ipl","tag-league","tag-sports","tag-sportsperson"],"yoast_head":"\nThe League of Forgotten Sportspeople<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are not a nation that encourages sport. How many times have you relatives tell you, \u201cPadhoge likhoge toh hoge nawaab. 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