Firstly, I'm a bit grumpy as blogger isn't allowing me to post photographs and maintain the sanctity of my nomad life page. Hmph. Goncalo help me please.
Indian sport has always been not about sports but about a game which only 11 countries in the world play called Cricket. Thanks to the friendly visiting Brits who "visited" India for quite some time, this game became so much a part of our culture, so much a statement of being Indian that it almost compares to the fanaticism of Bengalis
(a people in India who hail from the state of Bengal) to worship Tagore, Kipling and everything that is English.
(but always Tagore first of course)
Ok, this isn't meant to take digs at the Brits or the Bengalis.
Coming back to Cricket, thanks to Kerry Packer, floodlights, a white cricket ball
( I can hear the venerable gentlemen of yore blanching in their graves) and clothing akin to pyjamas, the game suddenly became not just a game but pure, unadulterated entertainment. In a conservative country which India was
(some might argue still is), cricket provided the opportunity for the entire family to partake in entertainment that didn't pose a problem for the moral police. Of course, if Amsterdam was a 20 pound Easy Jet ticket away and if David Beckham had been born in Calcutta, cricket wouldn't have stood a chance, but that's a moot point.
So, cricket became the game of the masses, the game of the classes and pretty much everyone else's game. From politicians to film stars, from Mark Knopfler to Musharraff; everyone wanted a piece of the cricket pie. At the forefront of course were the sinister peddlers of sugary slush, our favourite cola companies, who were soon joined by tooth paste manufacturers, suiting brands, oil companies, telecom providers, music video producers, the list is endless. You name the product and I can show you an advertisement of that product having a cricketer endorsing it.
Of course, it all comes down to money.cricket>passion&entertainment>people glued to TV sets>viewership>companies wanting to be seen there>cricketers endorsing anything and everything> loads of money in the game and for cricketers.
For the last ten years, Cricketers and cricket has been the sole medium of advertising that most large companies choose. The amounts have been staggering and the cricketers have been getting richer and richer. Of course, the fact that India has the 2nd best cricket team in the world helps.
(yes yes 2nd best among a huge total of 9 teams)
But, in the last 3 months two things have happened.
Firstly
(and I think this is the biggest thing to have happened in Indian sports in a long time) a lean, short 28 year old became the first Indian to sit in and actually compete in Formula 1.
Secondly, a young, precocious 18 year old Indian girl won a Tier 3 WTA event and a week later, went on to beat the reigning US open champion and world number 7.
Ironically, both these events happened slam bang in the middle of the biggest (
in terms of viewership and money) cricket series: India Vs Pakistan
Suddenly, there was actually someone competing with cricket to be on the front page of the newspaper. That in itself was an incredible change.
Suddenly, you could see as much of Narain Kartikeyan and Sania Mirza in the news as you could our beloved cricketers.
Suddenly, instead of the mandatory picture of Inzaman warming up or a close up of Sachin's elbow on the front page; you had a picture of Narain getting out of his Jordan after finishing 15th in his first race.
All this has led to the Indian media taking a deep breath and a step back. Suddenly, advertising gurus are saying that these two (Sania, Narain) break the clutter, provide a fresh alternative to advertising. They may be right and the sports agent in me can only rejoice at this turn of events but the sports enthusiast in me is doing a double take of delight.
For too long have we as Indians woken up, lived, rejoiced and died on the altar of cricket. Its time tennis, racing, snooker and several other sports took their rightful place in the sun. The basic prerequisite for India to embrace any sport other than cricket is to find a hero or heroine as the case may be. In tennis, we have found Sania, in racing Narain, in snooker & billiards found Pankaj Advani. If other sports have to follow, we need to have champions coming out of them. If football is ever to spread from the 2 states in India where it is played, we need to have an outstanding guy who’ll start pushing for a place in one of the big leagues in Europe. Only then will we see cricket receding not so much into the background but receding enough for the common man to notice that other sports exist.
Not a revolution yet, but there is the whisper of one. A whisper nonetheless, that can be heard above the cacophony that accompanies India playing Pakistan
