Spare a thought for other sport..

If Indian cricket could have been listed as a stock in the BSE and NSE last week, it would have further boosted the bull run that now is crossing levels never reached before – be it the Sensex or the Nifty.
But then, just as share prices are not always true reflections of their intrinsic values, to evaluate Indian cricket based on the Twenty20 triumph would be foolhardy. Overall, in the fortnight-long extravaganza played out in South Africa, it was nice to see Yuvraj Singh smash sixes at will, youngsters come up with steely performances and finally see skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni take his shirt off.
It resulted in what is now being termed as the most historic win on a cricket field after Kapil’s Devils won the World Cup at Lord’s in 1983. But was Twenty20 – still not sure whether it was a World Cup or World Championship – such a big event that the nation took to the streets well after sunset to celebrate?
Unlike the United States or China, ours is not a nation that will be counted for in medals tallies at the Olympics or at any other big multi-discipline sporting extravaganza. Cricket is played by 16 countries and, at best, when we win, it makes the public go crazy, and in reply, we have the Board of Control for Cricket in India going bonkers and the rest following suit.
So, just some time after S. Sreesanth takes a catch to get rid of Misbah-ul-Haq in the Twenty20 final on Monday, it’s like Diwali. Just that the bonuses that the cricketers got were so high that even golfing pros are now wondering whether it is better to labour on long courses over 72 holes or play a cricket match that ends in less than five hours.
I am not complaining about the cricketers getting monetary rewards. The BCCI has promised Rs 80 lakh to each player and Rs 1 crore to Yuvraj, the new prince. He is going to get a Porsche as well, and if past examples are an indicator, I doubt if he’ll oblige P. Chidambaram and pay tax on it. Add to it the Rs 4 crore booty from the ICC, the Twenty20 stars are going to be counting their notes for a long time.
But we do need to spare a thought for other sportspersons who also toil. The first to take up the cudgels was none other than Joaquim Caravalho, the Indian hockey coach. He obviously does not subscribe to the view that Indian cricket (Twenty20) is such a good stock that not only the BCCI, even state governments go bonkers and start announcing embarrassing sums as rewards.
Mind you, all this is tax-payers’ money and we have no say in deciding whether we actually want to reward the ‘instant’ cricketers or would be happier to see the hockey players get a bit rich.
So, when the threat of a protest fast was sounded out by Caravalho along with four Karnataka hockey players, it threatened to snowball into a major crisis. Hockey happens to be our forgotten national sport, though the movie Chak De India has made people once again think of the game again.
So, was the Twenty20 win big or Indian hockey winning the Asia Cup in Chennai on par, where the opposition comprised China and Korea? Hockey can never match cricket’s popularity even if we win the Olympic medal again.
But the treatment the sport gets from its own federation (IHF), headed by supercop KPS Gill, the Sports Ministry and the corporate sector reminds us of Oliver Twist getting punished because he asked for more.
Had it been a coach other than Caravalho, he would have probably kept quiet. Way back in 1998, just after India won the Asian Games gold medal in Bangkok, coach MK Kaushik and star goalkeeper Ashish Ballal spoke out and were fixed. I thought Caravalho had shot himself in the foot, but he didn’t care a damn. His philosophy is clear: if the corporate sector wants to woo cricketers, let them do it, but how can state governments have double standards and treat hockey like muck.
There were some people who felt Caravalho was over-reacting but when world champion – in billiards and snooker – Pankaj Advani also spoke out, it was clear there was something wrong with the system. Sportspersons are supposed to be professionals, and with the exception of India and some other regions in the subcontinent, the money they make is through prize money or commercial endorsements.
So had Tiger Woods been an Indian, he would probably be richer than Lakshmi Nivas Mittal! The point is, today when someone as sensible as Jeev Milkha Singh also speaks about wanting some support for golfers from the government, there’s something certainly wrong with the fetish for cricket. And even as the nation celebrates the Twenty20 triumph, those who make big bucks from illegal betting syndicates are scared what is in store for them in the ODI series against Australia having commenced and Pakistan also waiting to come and prove their credentials.
Indeed, testing times are ahead for the Indian cricketers who are now drunk on the Twenty20 success. Good performances in the series against Australia and Pakistan will not be easy as tougher competition and the law of averages are bound to catch up. In the best of times, fans have never been forgiving when it has come to failure on the cricket field.
And in times like these, when cricket is played almost non-stop like tennis or soccer around the globe, Indian cricket under Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s leadership needs to keep performing. The same people who come and salute you will bring out the knives the moment there is failure.
And just as the Sensex or Nifty cannot just keep going up, Indian cricket needs a correction, as they say in the bourses. The aberration: Unlike the trading floors, nobody will come to invest in other stocks like hockey, golf, or football.
A pity, isn’t it?