For someone who has lived and breathed sports for 30 years and who even today takes the time out from all the regular responsibilities of a 'working urban middle class family man' in India, to write about it (very few Indians across the world do actually), you couldn't be living in better times. The now proverbial 'Acche Din' is surely here for them!
The six months since yours truly last summed up the progress made by India in the international sporting arena for you, have been nothing short of exhilarating. It all reached its zenith on a 'Super Indian Sporting Sunday', November 16, 2014 when Kidambi Srikanth, a young 21-year old from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, stunned (hold your breadth) Lin Dan (yes, The Super Dan Himself!) in two straight games in the China Open Super Series final of all places.
Four bullet points should be enough to express the enormity of the 'event' for Indian sports.
1. Lin Dan is and forever will be the greatest human being to have played the sport of badminton
2. He might be 31(only), having come out of retirement (but that too two years ago), but the best of the best have always, almost always had it tough with the 'Dan' in big finals and have almost always come out vanquished, at best bruised. The nonchalance of the Srikanth performance given his age and top level experience (this was a first SS title) is spine-chilling!
3. Even on current form Lin Dan was ranked higher than Srikanth
4. This was in the lion's den-in China itself!
The parallels for this event in Indian sports could be drawn with the likes of the unprecedented eight Olympic gold run for Indian hockey, Khashaba's Jadhav's wrestling bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the 1983 world cup win in cricket, Michael Fereira's world championship win in cue sports, Abhinav Bindra's shooting gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and in badminton itself- Prakash Padukone's All England triumph in 1980. Those are all game changing moments and mark my words this one will be for Indian badminton and Kidambi Srikanth for sure and for Indian sports in general as well. Simply the audacity of it from a young Indian! This will rub off among the many talented youngsters out there pursuing their passion, now with far better access to sporting infrastructure and corporate support than ever before. Not to suggest that there is enough, but definitely far more.
Saina Nehwal also won the women's section of the China Open singles, but c'mon- we kinda expect her to win a couple of SS titles at least. She needs to go higher and bigger and sooner rather than later. Great sportswoman that she is, she deserves to give herself one final push.
Earlier in the year, India also participated in two important international multi-sporting events, namely, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. For the record India finished fifth and eighth respectively in the medal rankings, which were both down from the previous editions, but having watched the performances, I would not read too much into such minor deviations, which nowadays are also affected with frequently changing international rules and regulations. It should satisfy us for the moment that the Indian squads are now trying to be very competitive and professional internationally, and consistently at that, and the direction of progress is bang on. A lot more disciplines have started to show results which points at all round development of sport.
The year in particular has also been fantastic for the National sport (and a personal passion) of men's field hockey. After the euphoria of the Asian Games gold and the subsequent automatic qualification for the Rio Olympics, came the pleasing news of the squads Test series victory down under in Australia of all places. Now Australia has been the nemesis of Indian hockey on more than one occasion in the recent past and psychologically we were just down and out against them. To take them out at home was no mean feat. I will still stay on the side of the critic though as many more years of consistency is still required by the national squad in international hockey to reclaim the glory days. Till that happens it will help the squad to have some constructive critics.
And of course in the era of leagues, two more came up on the domestic sporting landscape both with very different outcomes as of now. The Hero Indian Super League for football did not take much time to be a raging hit in its debut year, as it was very well planned, invested, marketed, organized and executed. A special note of gratitude goes out to all the veteran and playing international footballers who with all their dedication and professionalism have made the league a resounding success.The same cannot be said about the Champions Tennis league mooted by the legendary Vijay Amritaraj. The pull outs didn't help as well.Whats pleasing about all such efforts is that with them enhances the chances of local talent getting better and better, as well as more and more of them getting attracted enough to pursue sport professionally. Money in sport nowadays, anyways cannot be a complain.
Vishwanathan Anand at the moment has the opportunity to drive a fresh bunch of talent towards chess if he manages to beat Magnus Carlson for the world title, which is currently underway. This is Anand's second shot at Carlson and champion is ahead by a point with two games to go in the duel. Anand could never be better than Kasparov. He needs to be better than Carlson.You wouldn't like to leave the slightest doubt would you?
Good news also continues to flow for India from the golf courses across the globe, more from the Asian region to be specific. There was an unprecedented period of three Sundays on the trot, when Indian golfers won on the Asian tour. Anirban Lahiri's win in the Venetian Macau Open was followed up by SSP Chowrasia with the Panasonic Open in Delhi and Rahsid Khan on the following Sunday bagging the Chiangmai Classic in Thailand. Lahiri then rounded off a fantastic year by qualifying for the European Tour through Q-school in Girona, Spain. What was also heartening was the unearthing of another talented golfing youngster who goes by the name of Subhankar Sharma. The amateur almost secured a dramatic victory at the Panasonic Open, but eventually finished fourth. Not a mean performance by any standards. Subhankar is barely 18, but the maturity and poise he displayed on the golf course is very encouraging. Wish him all the best!
There was inspiring news from the international cycling velodromes, although this one is situated in Delhi itself- now that is so unprecedented that even unprecedented sounds like an understatement. In a fairy tale of sorts, 2004 Tsunami survivor 19-year old Deborah, who hails from the serene Andaman & Nicobar islands struck gold in the women's 500 metre time trial at the AC Track Asia Cup 2014. I at least had never heard of any cycling medals of any international worth before this one.
So there is definitely a lot of buzz around Indian sports at the moment. Apart from the traditional strength areas, a lot of new sports are gaining in levels of performance and popularity which is excellent news. Rio by the way, will not be very far away and therefore now is not the time to relax but to increase efforts even more. Here's for a great Pre-Olympic year for Indian sports.
The six months since yours truly last summed up the progress made by India in the international sporting arena for you, have been nothing short of exhilarating. It all reached its zenith on a 'Super Indian Sporting Sunday', November 16, 2014 when Kidambi Srikanth, a young 21-year old from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, stunned (hold your breadth) Lin Dan (yes, The Super Dan Himself!) in two straight games in the China Open Super Series final of all places.
Four bullet points should be enough to express the enormity of the 'event' for Indian sports.
1. Lin Dan is and forever will be the greatest human being to have played the sport of badminton
2. He might be 31(only), having come out of retirement (but that too two years ago), but the best of the best have always, almost always had it tough with the 'Dan' in big finals and have almost always come out vanquished, at best bruised. The nonchalance of the Srikanth performance given his age and top level experience (this was a first SS title) is spine-chilling!
3. Even on current form Lin Dan was ranked higher than Srikanth
4. This was in the lion's den-in China itself!
The parallels for this event in Indian sports could be drawn with the likes of the unprecedented eight Olympic gold run for Indian hockey, Khashaba's Jadhav's wrestling bronze in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the 1983 world cup win in cricket, Michael Fereira's world championship win in cue sports, Abhinav Bindra's shooting gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and in badminton itself- Prakash Padukone's All England triumph in 1980. Those are all game changing moments and mark my words this one will be for Indian badminton and Kidambi Srikanth for sure and for Indian sports in general as well. Simply the audacity of it from a young Indian! This will rub off among the many talented youngsters out there pursuing their passion, now with far better access to sporting infrastructure and corporate support than ever before. Not to suggest that there is enough, but definitely far more.
Saina Nehwal also won the women's section of the China Open singles, but c'mon- we kinda expect her to win a couple of SS titles at least. She needs to go higher and bigger and sooner rather than later. Great sportswoman that she is, she deserves to give herself one final push.
Earlier in the year, India also participated in two important international multi-sporting events, namely, the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. For the record India finished fifth and eighth respectively in the medal rankings, which were both down from the previous editions, but having watched the performances, I would not read too much into such minor deviations, which nowadays are also affected with frequently changing international rules and regulations. It should satisfy us for the moment that the Indian squads are now trying to be very competitive and professional internationally, and consistently at that, and the direction of progress is bang on. A lot more disciplines have started to show results which points at all round development of sport.
The year in particular has also been fantastic for the National sport (and a personal passion) of men's field hockey. After the euphoria of the Asian Games gold and the subsequent automatic qualification for the Rio Olympics, came the pleasing news of the squads Test series victory down under in Australia of all places. Now Australia has been the nemesis of Indian hockey on more than one occasion in the recent past and psychologically we were just down and out against them. To take them out at home was no mean feat. I will still stay on the side of the critic though as many more years of consistency is still required by the national squad in international hockey to reclaim the glory days. Till that happens it will help the squad to have some constructive critics.
And of course in the era of leagues, two more came up on the domestic sporting landscape both with very different outcomes as of now. The Hero Indian Super League for football did not take much time to be a raging hit in its debut year, as it was very well planned, invested, marketed, organized and executed. A special note of gratitude goes out to all the veteran and playing international footballers who with all their dedication and professionalism have made the league a resounding success.The same cannot be said about the Champions Tennis league mooted by the legendary Vijay Amritaraj. The pull outs didn't help as well.Whats pleasing about all such efforts is that with them enhances the chances of local talent getting better and better, as well as more and more of them getting attracted enough to pursue sport professionally. Money in sport nowadays, anyways cannot be a complain.
Vishwanathan Anand at the moment has the opportunity to drive a fresh bunch of talent towards chess if he manages to beat Magnus Carlson for the world title, which is currently underway. This is Anand's second shot at Carlson and champion is ahead by a point with two games to go in the duel. Anand could never be better than Kasparov. He needs to be better than Carlson.You wouldn't like to leave the slightest doubt would you?
Good news also continues to flow for India from the golf courses across the globe, more from the Asian region to be specific. There was an unprecedented period of three Sundays on the trot, when Indian golfers won on the Asian tour. Anirban Lahiri's win in the Venetian Macau Open was followed up by SSP Chowrasia with the Panasonic Open in Delhi and Rahsid Khan on the following Sunday bagging the Chiangmai Classic in Thailand. Lahiri then rounded off a fantastic year by qualifying for the European Tour through Q-school in Girona, Spain. What was also heartening was the unearthing of another talented golfing youngster who goes by the name of Subhankar Sharma. The amateur almost secured a dramatic victory at the Panasonic Open, but eventually finished fourth. Not a mean performance by any standards. Subhankar is barely 18, but the maturity and poise he displayed on the golf course is very encouraging. Wish him all the best!
There was inspiring news from the international cycling velodromes, although this one is situated in Delhi itself- now that is so unprecedented that even unprecedented sounds like an understatement. In a fairy tale of sorts, 2004 Tsunami survivor 19-year old Deborah, who hails from the serene Andaman & Nicobar islands struck gold in the women's 500 metre time trial at the AC Track Asia Cup 2014. I at least had never heard of any cycling medals of any international worth before this one.
So there is definitely a lot of buzz around Indian sports at the moment. Apart from the traditional strength areas, a lot of new sports are gaining in levels of performance and popularity which is excellent news. Rio by the way, will not be very far away and therefore now is not the time to relax but to increase efforts even more. Here's for a great Pre-Olympic year for Indian sports.
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