Support for Other Games

We have got ourselves to a state where young people no longer play games in schools and colleges for the kind of benefits that games and sports bestow on them: physical fitness, the joy that one derives from playing any game well, the team spirit that sports promotes and so on. Participatory games have made way for vicarious games. We just watch others play and get excited at the scores they notch up. Only a few dedicate themselves completely to their chosen games or athletic disciplines and become professiols. But even in respect of vicarious games, there is so much of bias for just one game—cricket—that is hard to explain considering that that India is doing well in some other games too. Take badminton, for instance. In winning the Australian Open Super Series title on Sunday, Kidambi Srikanth did the tion proud. He beat the reigning Olympic and world champion Chen Long in straight games. This is his second successive title after winning the Indonesia Open Super Series Premier title a week earlier. There are not many players in the world who can match this kind of performance. Even the two top women players—Sai Nehwal and Sindhu—are doing well since they have maged to reach at least the semi-fils of most of the major tourments in which they have played. India has been doing fairly well in hockey as well, and the hopes of regaining India’s earlier supremacy in the game need not remain a pipe dream. Given a few more years, India could do well even in games like golf. It is important that India gets out of the exclusive and obsessive interest in just one game and encourages talent in other games as well. It will not take very long for Indian players to be making a me for themselves in other games and sports as well. We can then have more games to play vicariously.