Can India excel in sports?
T Thomas About 30 years ago, when I was on a business visit to Srinagar where an international sporting event was taking place, Sheikh Abdullah told me: “Why can’t we, Indians, produce a single winner out of our several hundred million people?” That question has haunted me ever since. Today we have a billion people but we are still barren. Even tiny countries of Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Senegal), Asia (Sri Lanka) and Latin America (Ecuador, Paraguay) seem ahead of us. Our national game in the early 20th century was hockey but we neglected to train our players on modern turf. That’s how we lost ground. Football has been played with great passion for more than 100 years in states like West Bengal and Kerala. Yet we have never been able to put together 11 Indians to win matches even in Asia. Today, the most popular and financially rewarding game in India is cricket. Our cricketers vie with cinema stars for glory. Yet in world ranking, we are now in the 8th place, just above Bangladesh! Even
