SEPTEMBER 2007 will definitely go down in the history of Indian sports as an important month that gave India dual achievements of clinching Hockey Asia Cup and T20 Cricket World Cup. As we keep tab on the sports news, it is well known that the young turks of Indian cricket team did a fantastic job and brought home the first T20 World Cup. The hangover of winning the T20 World Cup is still alive although we have slowly started feeling the pinch of being defeated after a great win. Australia has already shown our team the taste of defeat in the 2nd one day match of the Future Cup played at Kochi. We appreciate rain god for saving our team in Bangalore from probably being 2-0 down in the series.

The basic difference between the two teams is that Indian cricket team is filled with cricketing heroes whereas the Australian Cricket team is filled with performers, star performers, and super star performers. Statistically Australians always looked better even in the T20 game. The sheer luck in the game of cricket turned the tide against them. Murphy’s Law holds true in all forms of the game and in life experiences. Even though one does everything right, if things have to go wrong these would go wrong in spite of all the precautions. That’s what happened with the teams against whom India launched its crusade to win the T20 World Cup. However, no doubt about our lads who sparkled with their heroic performances to carry on the winning trail till they achieved the World Cup. Bravo! It was indeed a remarkable feat to achieve. The young Indians went on to defeat the rampaging England, South Africa, Australia and Pakistan convincingly.

While in 7th Men’s Hockey Asian Cup, the Indian hockey team showed superior performance right from the beginning of the tournament. Indian hockey team did not lose even a single match in the tournament and defeated the strongest team of the tournament; once in the league match and second time in the final. India defeated South Korea 7-2 in the final, which is one of the biggest margins in a final from the yardsticks of present day hockey matches. We scored total 56 goals and gave away just 5 goals in 7 matches that we played. We also scored 20 goals in a match against Sri Lanka and did not give away a single goal. This equaled the biggest margin of victory in Asia Cup record. We remained the lone team to keep our tally clean by not losing any matches among the 11 teams, and topped the tough six team pool B. This is a rare all win record in the pool stage. This was definitely a marvelous performance by our hockey players considering the fact that our neighbour Pakistan was not able get through even the semi finals of the tournament.

In both the cases we were not very confident of our team’s performance in the beginning. It all started with the heroic performance of our players in the middle of the tournaments. In cricket, if it was Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, Gambhir, and Uthappa, then it was Baljit Singh (goalkeeper) and his men in the hockey team. While Baljit Singh displayed the brilliant feat of stopping the goals from the opponents’ team, and others went on onslaught of scoring goals mercilessly. Both the teams deserve high degree of praise and accolades, because both have brought glory to the nation and kept the pride of the game. Actually hockey team deserves little better treatment and higher praise than cricket because hockey is our national game. But, do we treat both games equally in India and do we have any special attachment for our national game? Let us look at a few of the events that unfolded after hockey team and cricket team won the respective Asia Cup and T20 World Cup.

Indian cricket team received Rs 2 crores as a tournament prize after winning the T20 World Cup. BCCI, the governing body of Indian cricket announced Rs 8 crores for winning the final. BCCI even gave away Rs 4 crores for reaching the final and Rs 1 crore for Yuvraj Singh alone. Players received cash awards up to Rs. 21 lakhs from the state governments to which they belong. Funniest! Uthappa received Rs. 3 lakh from government of Kerala, just for the reason that his mother is from Kerala. Players received apartments worth Rs.25 lakhs from Sahara. A new award, ’Jharkhand Ratna’ honour is being introduced for the first time and will be presented to Dhoni for making the state proud, on the 7th foundation day celebration of the state on November 15 at Ranchi. News channels ran special news bulletin, editions and highlights throughout the night. Special news editions, cover stories and posters were covered in almost all the newspapers for the next two days. There was heroes’ welcome for the team on their arrival in Mumbai. They were graciously received from the airport and given a gala welcome by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Deputy CM R R Patil and their Cabinet colleagues. There was 30 km long victory procession organized that lasted over five hours. I think even the erstwhile kings of the country might have envied this Maharaja’s treatment.

And what was the reward of winning Asia Cup team? Individual greeting message was sent by our Honorable President. For the news channels and papers, it was just a sports news item and featured in the sports section. No special mention in electronic media or print media about the team or players. IHF had announced an incentive for the team where they would receive Rs 1000 for every goal scored and lose Rs 2000 for every goal conceded. What a lucrative incentive! The state governments did not even send a congratulatory note to the respective players of the state; forget about the honour and prize.

Most of us will definitely feel differently about the treatment of the players of these two legendry games of India. However, one wonders, if this is the status of Indian cricket in the minds of government, people and media, then why not make it the national game of the country? Why is this diplomacy about keeping hockey the national game when the Indian masses are more concerned about cricket? True to the sense that hockey has always kept Indian tri-colour proud with its marvelous past of winning continuous Olympic and Asiad Gold medals. But this cannot be forgotten that those were the days when the legendry players like Major Dhyan Chand were in the hockey team. World cannot forget his magic hockey stick, which was misunderstood to have a magnet embedded and was changed few times in a game in Germany. The trend of winning World Cup, Olympic, and Asiad medals continued till 1980 and we had some of the finest payers of the game on our side. But the golden era of hockey could not stretch and downward trend was noticed thereafter. However, there has been less effort and more politics in resurrecting the past glory of the Indian hockey.

Subsequently, the Cricket World Cup of 1983, made dramatic shift of interest of Indian people, government and media toward the game. The dark horse of the game, India’s cricket team defeated mighty West Indies to bring home the solitary cricket world cup. Hockey took a backseat and even good efforts and good show by the hockey players did not enthuse media to cover them more and bring them back to be the hero in the hearts of the Indian public. Surprisingly even the government remembered hockey team only during the time of World Cup, Olympic, and Asiad. Recognition, incentives and facilities went on declining for the hockey players and today it is nowhere close to the cricket players. Now, a great performance by the hockey team has been overshadowed by the cricket T20 world cup.

We understand that because of the corporate funding and advertiser’s money cricket is becoming richer everyday and at no point of time hockey can compare to cricket on the popularity index in India, especially with the young generation. But, we should not forget hockey is the game world learnt from us and we are now distancing ourselves from the game. It is time that the corporates, media and Indian Hockey Federation take care of the future of hockey and its players and the government should come forward openly to promote it as the country’s favourite game. Incentives, prizes and support should be made lucrative so that people crave to become a hockey players rather than joining the mad rush of becoming cricket players. I personally do not feel that Indian hockey has lost its fan following. Indians by heart are attached to hockey; otherwise “Chak De” would have not been applauded so much. Thanks to Badshah Khan who truly understood the spirit of Indian hockey and acted with so much of passion. The promise that Indian hockey players have shown recently reflects that the revival of hockey in India is not a dream. It is going to be a reality. I surely hope so!

Source: www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=126780