Cricket Vs Olympics

Sports Minister M S Gill asks P Gopichand, ‘Who are you?’. Apparently this made a big headline couple of days ago. I would empathize with Mr Gill, as I would have asked the same question hadn't I had the habit of google'ng people’s name. FYI P Gopichand is 2001 All England Badminton Champion only after Prakash Padukone (yes now famous father of Deepika Padukone). He is also the National Badminton Coach, to Saina Nehwal.

Abhinav Bindra, Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar have made INDIA proud no doubt, probably would have gone unnoticed, but for their medals. Forget about recognizing them in public how many of us would remember them a month later. How many of us know the rules about shooting or boxing or weight lifting? Sorry to say but unfortunately they are born in the wrong era or wrong country. I only remember Karnam malleswari(weightlifting) and Rajyavardhan Rathore(shooting) during Olympics and hope some day some how, an athletes would do a PT Usha or Mikha Singh act.

Now that's a lot of alien names in country where cricket is religion and sachin is GOD. We have grown on watching kapil, gavaskar, sachin and now dhoni entertaining us to the core. Discussion about cricket and cricketer's name falls in our comfort zone. We would rather talk about dravid's back foot than leander’s back hand. We can talk hours write articles about them for pages about their records, statistics, and their life. We always want to attain kapil's passion, gavaskar's concentration, sachin's application and dhoni's daredevil attitude don’t we? We would criticize ganguly for his fielding never would we appreciate an athlete for his efforts. We would struggle to name 11 all time great non cricketers’s but would pen down the 11 for the next ODI.

Why would ambani, mallya or srk invest in IPL franchise? Why would a Subash Goel create ICL against BCCI? why not other sports? In the current age where ever thing is business, cricket sells and business men are no philanthropists. Cricket generates revenue and hence gets the prime importance be it on TV or Paper.As they say “paisa bolta hai”.
Media also has a lot of effect on our thinking process, they have elated and highlighted cricket to such an extent that it has been inculcated in our blood. In a country where cricket sells, cricketers are projected as macho men; heroines would pose with yuvi or dhoni rather than with paes or gopichand. Even though the later have achieved a lot more than the former.

As Bishen Singh Bedi wrote "We are a confused nation when it comes to sports". I truly agree with him.

Just to conclude read this article.
Can India host olympics ?