Why play the blame game?

The Olympics has just come to an end. And as an Indian, I am definitely proud about our performance in the recently culminated sporting extravaganza. We bagged the highest ever number of medals in an Olympics, and can hope for a better future for our sports, especially considering that apart from the medal winning performances, there were others who exceeded our expectations, and also many a young Indian sportspersons leaving their mark in the global platform.

And this is the only time in four years, the one month window before the Olympics Games fortnight, when we take to introspection, and to some extent retrospection, and start counting the number of medals that are expected from our Indian contingent. The same people, whom there is a great chance we may have never heard of before, we start hailing as our best medal prospects. Who cares in which event? And that’s the only time when cricket is not at the top of our minds. We realize that there are sporting bodies other than the BCCI, and it may be a surprise for many “sport enthusiasts” that there is a ministry dedicated solely to the sports!

And just after the Olympics Games are over, and the medal count falls short of our expectations, we resort to blame game and look out for avenues to vent out our anger and frustrations, and as a result, end up blaming the system for its failures and incompetency and negligence and what not, the media for its overhyping and lastly, cricket. Yeah, that’s right. Cricket!

When it comes to cricket, we do have a very mercurial attitude.

During the Games, when our patriotism and nationalism is at its jingoist best, we try and ridicule the game of cricket, with most “purists” even going as far as to call cricket as not even worthy of being called a sport, and then cite its non-inclusion in the Games as a shot in the arm for their reasons. But my dear purists, we don’t have even baseball and American Football in the list. And please avoid saying this in front of the Americans, because there is a good chance you will be persecuted for blasphemy! And the story doesn’t end here. Even the cricketers are not spared the wrath, the same larger than life figures, who have the best firsthand experience of the fickleness of the Indian masses.

Why this hypocrisy? Why play the blame game? Let us be real for some time. Ours is predominantly a cricketing nation. Cricket is the only sport that is taken seriously in our nation. And what’s wrong in that? If we have made any impact in the sporting arena, and have been continuously doing so, if people like Usain Bolt and Michael Schumaker know India in terms of sporting capabilities, we owe it to cricket. And to be more specific, to a certain Mr. Sachin Tendulkar, the same guy, whom, at times, we elevate to Godly status, and at other times, have even hurled stones at his house. But he has never complained. We say, being a nation of over a billion people, why we aren’t the best in any sport? But we don’t include cricket in our calculations, do we? What does it matter if not many teams are competing for the glory in cricket, we are still the world champions. And that matters. And who said cricket is not followed west of the globe? After the world cup winning feat, the US President himself congratulated Dhoni and his men!

So, who is at fault for our shameful performances over and over again in the Olympics? What I think, its we ourselves, who have brought it upon us. Every nukkad that we see, every lane in our country, is teeming with youngsters playing cricket. I have never seen a group of children trying to see who can jump the longest or highest in a heap of sand. Or parents taking children to hockey lessons rather than cricket coaching. So if we ourselves feel that our young people playing cricket have better chances of a good future, then be it so. And with good reasons. A number of domestic cricketing leagues including the IPL, have opened the doors to a larger population, especially with less privileged backgrounds to realize the Indian dream, and have a chance to get a shot at a better life.

My only contention is that, lets please don’t blame cricket for our debacles in other sports. For a change, lets for once ask the younger generation to play football and hockey, and then wait for the desired results to come into effect. It would do us good rather than just blaming the game when we are good at it. Let’s hope that we are matured enough to learn positively from the recently concluded Games, and take heart from the highs that we have been able to achieve.