Looking ahead, running backwards

There are things in sport that happen only in India—including a sports minister who trashes national hockey a day before a significant win, Men in Blue who are perpetually in the blues, and the head of the Organising Committee for the 2010 Commonwealth Games who declares that everything is going fine when not a single brick has moved since India got the Games three years ago

By Norris Pritam

Indian sport is an amazing world. Look at all this: the Union sports minister at loggerheads with the National Olympic Committee; the so-called world beaters, India’s Men in Blue, finding Bangladesh hard to beat; the hockey team snatching a worthy bronze medal after the said sports minister’s diktat to devalue the sport from its national status.

And, yet, sport survives in India, even throwing up an occasional P T Usha, Leander Paes, Karnam Malleswari, and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Both success and failures in Indian sport have a tale to relate. The sports administrators carry even juicier tales—they are not bothered about the prestige of the offices they hold and the taxpayer’s hard-earned money that they blow away with total élan.

“Games planning, at an international standard adopting best practice for the Commonwealth Games, is behind schedule and must be accelerated immediately.” These comments by an evaluation commission would have given nightmares to any organiser of an international event in any country.

But the organisers of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010 seemed least bothered by the critical observations of Austin Sealy, the head of the four-member Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) delegation that visited New Delhi early this month to oversee the Games’ preparation.

“You have three-and-a-half years to go, and the Organising Committee immediately needs to build a team to deliver the Games. Development of skilled managers can't be delayed and this should be the highest priority,” Sealy said. The organisers should remember that the Commonwealth Games is the most important sports event after the Olympics and they have a reputation to maintain, he added.

But Suresh Kalmadi, chairperson of the Organising Committee, has other ideas. “Everything is in place and things are moving in the right direction,” he commented after Austin Sealy’s critical analysis. The truth, however, is that not a brick has moved ever since New Delhi was awarded the Games some three years ago. What supreme, if misplaced, confidence by the chairperson of the Organising Committee. Only in India can this happen.

In any other country, its sports minister would have played host to the visiting CGF delegation. But India’s Mani Shankar Aiyar decided, instead, to stay away even from meetings and media briefing by the delegation and the IOA, the National Olympic Committee of India. As far as the New Delhi Commonwealth Games go, we can rest assured that we have an anxious time ahead of us.

Away from organisational blues to the Men in Blue. When India lost to “minnows” Bangladesh in the recent cricket World Cup, it was said to be a “fluke” win for the lowly-placed Bangladesh. But what happened during the recent series in Bangladesh? The Indian giants struggled to draw the Tests against the “minnows”.

Cricket by chance, goes the old saying. But why does only India have to depend on chances? Real worldbeaters like the Australians convert slim chances into certain wins. They play their cricket by sheer grit and determination, not fickle chances.

Hockey has a different story. After the debacle at the previous Asian Games at Doha, the national sport had to face criticism from all quarters. Senior players were sacked, coach Baskaran was removed, and the media was harsh on the players. Then came an unprecedented diktat from Aiyar. At one stroke, he devalued hockey from his ministry’s number one category and clubbed it with Wushu and kayaking. Just then, as if to mock him, under new coach Joaquim Carvalho, the team beat Korea and won a bronze medal in the Azlan Shah Tournament in Malaysia. Everyone hailed the team for its deserving victory—except, of course, the sports minister. His reproach remained unrelenting.

Just when the hockey team was celebrating its Malaysian outing, some leading Indian badminton players were shuttling from place to another, seeking justice. Their fault? They wanted to take part in some international tournaments at their own expense, but the Badminton Association of India (BAI) felt otherwise: it ordered the players to attend a coaching camp instead. The month-long tiff resulted in the players losing out some vital match play. Ultimately, the BAI lifted the ban on the players and allowed them to participate in tournaments abroad. By then, however, a wide chasm had been created between the players and the national coach, P Gopi Chand.

In the 1960s, T N Seth, Nandu Natekar and Prakash Nath had regaled fans in the international arena, and they were followed by Dinesh Khanna and Suresh Goel. Then came World Champion Prakash Padukone and, more recently, Gopi Chand. But who do we have on the horizon today? No one. This is how the Indian sport evolves—from bad to worse.