Hockey Or Cricket: What should be India’s National sport?

Overjoyed by India’s excellent showing in International Cricket in 2008, MAK Pataudi, former India Captain, strongly advocated that Cricket be declared as India’s National Sport. Instant sharp reactions by diehard Hockey supporters, including some former Gold medal winning Olympians followed, as expected. Some of them even dared Indian Cricket team to win six world cups in a row before demanding the status!

Ironically, Leslie Claudius, former Indian Hockey legend doesn’t mind Hockey being stripped of the privilege. His words "Hockey doesn’t have future in India" echoes the disgust, frustration and grief shared by millions of Indians who care about Indian Hockey. All the former stalwarts, who take pride in India’s glorious past, literally turned blind as KPS Gill and other administrators killed the sport. None of them dared to stand up and challenge the autocratic IHF officials. State of Hockey seems to have gone down to the point of no return. So yes, why not elevate Cricket, the sport in which Indians are doing well of late to the status symbol?

India made its debut in international Cricket in 1932. By then Indian Hockey had already won its first Gold in Olympics. India could not win a single test for next two decades, while gold medal winning spree continued even after independence. The five gold medals prior to independence must have been one of the factors in proclaiming Hockey as National Sport. Strangely, Indian Hockey’s decline started in sixties as Indian Cricket just started to make its mark.

Pre-independence Cricket was controlled by Maharajas. As the administration came to the Merchants, Wankhedes and Salves, Cricket started to spread. Hockey though, disintegrated, affected particularly by the partition. India’s performance prior to World Cup in 1975 had started to drop. There was chaos in IHF too at that time. The world cup win should have been a booster for Hockey. IHF could not capitalize on the world cup victory and immediately plummeted in 1976 Olympics.

BCCI, on the other hand, perfectly encashed the 1983 world cup win. Cricket following has been rising ever since. Pictures of Kapil Dev lifting the Prudential Cup has inspired world beaters like Sachin and Co. Rising economic clout of Indian society was shrewdly tapped by Dalmiya and same is being done by Lalit Modi. India is the financial capital of World of Cricket today. What is more, Indian team too is good enough to stake claim for being the best in the world today.

Huge following. Good infrastructure. Shrewd marketeers. World class performers. Everything in Cricket's favour. Dwindling public inerest. Hopeless administration. Shameful results. Everything against Hockey. So, should the government go with Pataudi's wish and declare Cricket as India's National sport? Sure, why not? But it should also withdraw Tiger's status as National Animal! After all, Indian forests are fast becoming bereft of tigers too!!