Cricket as a National Obsession is a Detriment to Other Sports

Hello friends,

I think cricket is not a loss(detriment) to any other sport.

Cricket increased its reach only after 1995-96. That is because after that period players like Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Kumble played many brilliant innings to help India win against foreign teams on their home grounds. In fact India had defeated the Great Australian team, of 1999-2007, on most occasions.

So, as a citizen when we hear about a sport in which we get wins consistently, we feel proud and automatically follows that sport.

On the other hand, India had last won a gold in hockey in 1980, India last qualified for football world cup in 1950. After Mr. Milkha Singh and Mrs. PT Usha no other athlete has got enough success. Shooting, Boxing, Wrestling, Badminton, Archery became more popular only after 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics. That is why these sports were not followed by many people before.

So, India have not been able to produce successes consistently in other sports so as to gain enough interests of people in that sport as compared to cricket.

But now things are changing. Many sports are getting noticed. More and more people are watching those sports including Kabaddi.

During 60es an 70es cricket wasn't known to interior of India, We hardly remember who were vijay Hazare and other greats. Its only after 70ies and the invent of television this game became popular and reached to the masses. The other reason is the efforts put by the cricketers of that time like Sunil Gavaskar who gave some of the memorable moments of glory to the country. We started to beat the Europeans at their own game. This was a great morale booster for country which has grown up believing the superiority of White Race. Also it is money spinning machine for many others.

Now that boxing is getting popular because Akhil Kumar and Vijendra Singh are winning honours for the country. Sushil Kumar has made grappling popular whereas Saina Nehwal has coxed many girls to wield racquet. Everyone wants to be a part of winning team. Indian Sports in a unique Catch-22 situation where there can't be talent and victory without money and there can't be money (Sponsorship) without victories.

Hence the onus is on government to encourage other sports too and its also the role of Media to bring the stories of struggle and success of other sportsmen too.

Hello everyone,

Sports have always been an essential part of human life. The history of Indian sports has been written in golden letters in hockey, chess, marathon and obviously cricket as well.

Cricket is a sport we learnt from the British, and same like the English language it's becoming more popular day by day. Actually, the problem is we have shown more interest in western item than the locals.

Talking about Cricket being an obsession, yes it is an obsession. But even soccer is an obsession in the Western countries But other sports are also going excellent there.

So, we cannot blame Cricket for failure in other sports. We have had Vishwanathan Anand, Milkha Singh, The great Khali, Abhinav Bindra, Mary com and the list goes on.

What is the need of the day is our sports associations and the government needs to encourage other sports and even a parent should encourage its child towards other sports and schools and colleges should motivate and encourage its students participate in other sports.

Finally, I conclude that we need to work at the root level and make other sports flourish too.

Just blaming cricket is not going to work.

Hello ladies and gentlemen,
the very first thing should be mentioned here that, what is the actual role of sports in any country-
1. It shows efficiency of a country in sports worldwide.
2. It gives name, fame.
3. As a profession.
Here no. 2 affects strongly no.1&3,
so,as far as name nd fame is concerned cricket is everywhere. Handsome money given to them and a seperate board(bcci) alloted, makes it more difficult to other sports.
For encouraging other games the only way is to make them popular through advertisement,promising excitement,benifits of not watching cricket i.e. Saving of lots of time etc. A sport is always made to entertain ,it is the way we look at them makes it boring.
I think media is a little bit responsible
only when advertisement is concerned otherwise they show whatever people want to see. They just increase the publicity,they don't create it. If tommorrow we will get into olympic finals in hockey, virendra lakra and sandeep singh will be on every tv channel.
So,i think its enough of cricket,lets promote other sports because cricket can promote itself for next 8-10 yrs. Thank you.

Sports are judged based on their worldwide popularity and when more than 200 nations are part of FIFA they are not idiots where there are 10 to 12 teams in ICC rankings and most of them are developing countries and even ICC pleads to nations to take part in World Cup that tells the story. While Americans are obsessed with basketball, rugby and baseball Indians are obsessed with cricket but Americans are good at Olympics and take part in football world cup India does nothing. To me Cricket is on the same level as playing with marbles so beating Bangladesh or Sri Lanka in Cricket doesn't hold any importance to the people around the world and you have seen those matches in the USA where the whole stadium was full of Indians but no Americans. The problem is that parents buy a bat and a ball for their kids and not football. My friends used to discuss cricket but I didn't do what many would do they would start watching cricket join their friends' discussion party, actually there is no seriousness about that game as it's not important to hundreds of other countries.

Hi friends,

Very glad to hear all opinions of everyone. Primarily, All sports are equal in their specialty. There is no inferiority or superiority between sports. In India, of course Cricket is the most popular game. But it does not mean that is the only sport that creates obsession among Indians. There were also several excited sports but why cricket as a National obsession that is detriment to other sports?

Sponsorship, prize money are less in other sports when compared to cricket. So persons who are very eager to build their career as sportsman are not in a position to think about other sports.

In addition, Media hype, that leads to more excitement among cricket lovers. Respective Sports Authority should take intensive measures, create opportunities for sportsmen for respective sports. They need to be trained properly to face any type challenges and most important thing that appreciation must be given to sportsmen of other sports.

So now a days, yes. Cricket is National Obsession that is detriment to other sports.

Sport in any country reflects the culture, environment, people and economy as well.

Humans developed sports as part of interest, entertainment and physical education.

In India, Cricket introduced by British and now it is much far loved sport than the rest by distance. It rapidly became popular by adaptability, love, passion and area of interest by Indian citizens.

However other sports like Hockey, Football and other Gymnasium were shadowed behind it.

Hence Corporate and government bodies, media communications liquefied the emergence of people's interest much higher. So we can see lot of money going for cricket than other sports.

Now other sports lovers put finger on cricket for demolishing their game.

In democracy, no one can put regulation and force peoples to love any specific sport beyond their likelihood, which is pretty unnatural as well.

Best thing happen to any sport is that it played with natural interest and equally loved by others.

In my opinion , cricket is not detrimenting any other sports , it is supressed by ourselves we ,the people are totally responsible for that .
well i think that there is no comparison between 2 sports everything has its own existence so how can cricket suppress the other sports .
its just the matter of fact that indian people are crazy about the cricket .so the comparison lies not in sports but in our thinking only .
last-a-days the economic times conducted a survey to find out who inspires the people in the field of sports and the results was as under :-
43% people inspires with S R Tendulkar
35% people inspires with M S Dhoni
11% people inspires with S Nehwal
04% people inspires with Vijendra singh
04% people inspires with A bindra

from the above figure it is observe that a total of 78% people inspired by the cricketers ....that shows the craziness of the people towards cricket ..............

Hi,

In India when we talk about sports first thing which comes in our mind is cricket. Its definitely killing other sports, nobody is interested in sports other than cricket. You ask anyone (in India) in which sport he/she is interested in, the answer is Cricket. Other sports are also flourishing but not with that vigor that it needs. People involved in other sports can be counted on the fingers but people involved in Cricket are uncountable. There are some athletes who are barely able to make their ends meet because there is not enough recognition of that particular sport.

Cricket has been spread only in those countries which were earlier the colonies of the British. Rest of the countries have not even heard about this sport.

We have to admit the fact that people are gradually being attracted towards other sports and I think that day is not far when other sports will also be given the respect they deserve.

Cricket cricket cricket ! It has become the religion of India and national anthem of our country so much so that the word itself creates a wave of excitement in the people. Cricket runs as the life flowing blood through the veins of multitudes. Yes cricket is the god of sports in India I'm not even being the least sardonic when I says this but in other ways we can say that it is the occasion of horrible condition of other sports in India. There was a time when India did win the hockey world cup but now nobody remember this.

Many of us eagerly waits for the indo-pak match to boost the morale of their country but where did this morale boosting brigade go when sportsmen other than the cricketers need them. At last I would say I'm not a cricket hater neither I'm against any sort of privileges given to this game but I'm worried little against the less attention given to other games at the cost of cricket.