It’s quite right to say that cricket has killed other sports in the country. The amount of money, media attention, fan following and scholarship that goes into the game is enormous. A single international cricket match fetches corers of rupees for the cricket board and fills up the pockets of players. Thus, with heaps of money, the players are provided with world class facilities for training and for development. Infact all the recent coaches for the Indian cricket team have been of foreign origin.

On the other had, had same amount of attention and money be given to other sports, the situation would have been different. We wouldn’t have returned empty handed or just with a penny in hand from the Olympics every time. Poor infrastructure for other games, low funds, poor coaching faculty and equipments has retarded the growth of sport in India, barring cricket.

We cannot lame media for this. Media shows what people want to see. It is the people who are responsible. They are so occupied with cricket that the other sports are overlooked. Cricket has evolved as a religion which has certainly hampered the growth of other sports in the country.

It would not be justified to say that cricket has killed other sports. The fact that cricket has become a religion cannot be denied, and media cannot be blamed for that. It is the masses who are responsible for the neglecting other sports.

But the fact that has to be pondered about is that it is only the cricket which has done India proud while other games have performed very badly in the international arena. Cricket has been the only sport which has been winning matches, thereby winning people’s hearts. People want to see their country win. Had India done well in other sports such as football, hockey, badminton or another, surely it would have ginned popularity and fan fallowing. Nobody likes loosing.

Take the example of hockey in the period before 1980. It was a time when hockey was very popular just because India used to win most of the matched it played and not due to the undue attention by the media. There were no televisions at that time, no multi million deals and no extravagant marketing. Yet sport was popular and well known. Its popularity decreased when it started loosing most of the matches. On the other hand, cricked came up and after winning the world cup in 1983, has gained popularity ever since. Recently hockey got some attention again due to it win in the Asia Cup and the 1st Afro-Asian Games. Premier hockey league has further increased its popularity. Smilirly, Sinia Mirza, Mahesh Bhupati, Leader Pace have immerged stronger in the field of tennis and thus helped in the popularisation of the sport.