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Hail Haryana for India’s rise in Olympic sports, and blame not cricket for all the ills of Indian sports! Whenever India lifted a medal in the London Olympics, and some others failed, despite coming close, the game that got flogged back home was cricket and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
They not only wisely invested the money earned from cricket to create a buffer bank balance, but also to build world-class infrastructure across the country, and chalk out an effective grass-root talent development programme, which has ensured a steady supply-line of top-class players, to put India among the very best in the nine cricket playing countries. And coming back to India’s six-medal haul in London, a huge credit should go to the tiny state of Haryana, as four of the six medallists hailed from the state, though Saina Nehwal and Gagan Narang have grown up in Hyderabad, and perfected their sporting skills there. Long before any other state could even think of, Haryana had put in place a plan with the slogan “Padhak lao, pad lelo” (Bring medals, get jobs). This ensured not only hefty cash awards for the medal winner, but suitable and lucrative jobs in the state services as well. No wonder, out of the 81-member Indian contingent for the London Olympics, 18 belonged to Haryana, or had their roots there, including four of the six medallists — Sushil Kumar (silver-wrestling), Yogeshwar Dutt (bronze-wrestling), Gagan Narang (bronze-shooting) and Saina Nehwal (bronze-badminton). This was a remarkable achievement for a state, which ranks only 16th in population and 21st in size, with a skewed sex ratio, among the Indian states. How could such a tiny state jump over bigger and much-better developed states in the sporting stakes is not because of any magic therapy, but due to systematic and long-term planning, giving thrust on the sports popular in the villages of the state like wrestling, boxing, shooting, hockey and athletics, to reap rich medal hauls in international events like the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games. Every successive government has carried forward this sporting legacy of the state, despite their differing political thinking, to put Haryana on top. And Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken should take a leaf out of Haryana’s success story to implement the formula at the national level, to give Olympic sports a big thrust, instead of making hollow promises and berating cricket.
And he should not keep the huge stadiums in New Delhi under lock and key, to gather dust and rot, but throw them open to sportspersons to use them to their optimum capacity.
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Every sports writer and expert worth his opinion put all the blame at the doorstep of the BCCI and cricket for the stunted growth of Olympic sports. Even Sports Minister Ajay Maken, who misses no chance to take pot-shots at cricket, forgets the fact that if cricket is the no 1 sport in the country, with a pan-Indian appeal, great planning and effort had been put in by visionary administrators to make the sport what it is today.
