(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)L Suresh looks back at a year when more people tuned in to news channels than sports channels for the latest in sports.
What’s it about Indian sports that we seem to be doing so well on just about every turf? Sportspersons (other than cricketers) have finally begun their journey from the sports page to page 3 and along the way, have been stopping at page 17 (for a product endorsement), page 12 (for a controversial statement that's now providing editorial meat) and page 5 (for supporting a social cause). Small wonder that, considering the kind of successes they've been having for a year now. Winning a cricket series abroad (Now that Chappell's here, we will), a grand slam singles title (not yet, but it’ll happen), an F1 championship (we're getting there), a chess title (well, almost), a hockey gold (hold on, we'll be right back)... Wait a minute - what exactly have we been celebrating all year?
2005 was a year when the magic of marketing, media and megabucks finally caught up. As a nation, we stopped looking for success - who has the time for it when we're busy looking for icons? It was the also year of spats- Sourav vs Chappell, Baichung Bhutua vs East Bengal, Gerhard Rach vs the Indian Hockey Federation... While the stars shone for the likes of Sania and Dravid, others like Sourav found themselves in an elevator headed towards basement parking - the most convenient place to begin a ride into the sunset from.
Let’s take a quick look at what 2005 had in store for Indian fans:
Tennis – love all, conquer none
There's something that happens to our boys and girls who win junior grand slams - they don't grow up enough to win the senior editions of the same. Instead they deftly sidestep and shift to tag teams, comfortably winning doubles titles and Davis Cup ties. Now, there has been another shift - to mixed doubles, and no, we shall not look down upon it, because that's where our grand slam titles for 2005 have come from - two to be precise, in Wimbledon and the US Open, thanks to Mahesh Bhupathi. (In India, a ‘grand slam’, until recently, was when a player hurled the racquet in disgust onto the court after losing a match.)
As for Sania, she became the first Indian sportswoman to feature on the cover of Time magazine and ended 2005 with a WTA ranking of 34. In a country where a star's pout can send millions into raptures, imagine what reaching the third round of a grand slam can do.
Football – getting a kick out of nothing
If there ever was a similarity between us and the US – it’s football. Both versions are limited to the country, are not followed outside and in both cases, the teams think the world of themselves. One can’t help but wonder about the 'Closed User Group' mode of the game, where crores of rupees change hands as clubs battle it out for God-knows-what, with none of them managing to reach Asian standards, leave alone the bigger league.
Today, we’re a country ranked 135th in the world, struggling to find a place at the top even in the SAF games and the SAFF Cup, with Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan giving us a run for every goal. (If India beating Bangladesh in the 2005 SAFF Cup is news, so be it.) That’s why, it doesn't come as a big surprise that the biggest football event of the year was India skipper Baichung Bhutia's 'spat' (by now, the most popular word in Indian sport) with East Bengal and his subsequent signing up with Malaysian outfit M K Land.
Hockey - past perfect, future tense
The story so far – Coach Rajinder Singh is thrown out just a month before the Athens Olympics begins. German-born Gerhard Rach is appointed Coach and after a series of debacles, Rach resigns. Rajinder Singh Junior takes his place and gets to hold his place till the 2006 World Cup.
With such a stormy start to the year, it was only natural that each day was a rocky ride through turbulence. We came fifth in the six-nation KT Cup women's hockey tournament held in Seoul, finished fourth in the junior world cup in Netherlands, stood last in the eight-nation mini world cup, managed only a 11th position in the junior women's world cup at Chile, finished seventh out of eight nations in the Rabo cup and fifth out of seven nations at the Azlan Shah Cup. And in the recently concluded Sahara Champions Trophy, we finished last. Not surprising if past performances are anything to go by - all we've managed so far is one bronze in 17 years.
F1 – all gas, no speed
India's first Formula One racing driver. The Fastest Indian in the World. 2005 in F1 was another year where the journey became the destination itself. Finishing 15th in the Australian Grand Prix, Narain Karthikeyan notched up his first points in the United States Grand Prix, finishing fourth as most teams pulled out for safety reasons. Otherwise, his best race position has been 11th,at the Malaysian and the Belgian Grand Prix. If the whole year can be captured into a frozen moment, it is the unfortunate incident of Karthikeyan crashing into the wall at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. He was fortunate to escape unhurt, but it signified a dead end for India in 2005, as far as F1 was concerned.
Golf – Gentlemen only, losing forbidden?
2005 ended with Jyoti Randhawa heading the league of global golfing Indians with a world ranking of 123 and the rest following - without trying to crowd those before them - at a leisurely pace. We have, for long, celebrated the first Indian golfer on the PGA Tour, the first Indian to win a European Tour Order of Merit event and the first Indian to qualify for the British Open. Sometime in the future, we shall also look forward to celebrating victories.
Cricket – a nation’s drug
Is there a word that remains to be printed or said on the game? Thanks to over-zealous news channels, irate Ganguly fans and poor performances abroad, 2005 saw cricket remain a hapless housewife – bearing the brunt of the common man’s pleasures and pains. And at every available opportunity, he took to the streets - to celebrate or to condemn.
While the country was sent into raptures by emerging stars like Pathan and Dhoni, old warhorses like Sachin and Kumble reasserted their dominance over the game. India continued to be Pakistan's bunny in one-dayers and continued its poor run of tournament finals as it slipped to its 12th defeat in the last 16 finals. A pressure cooker situation built up at the BCCI and when it predictably blew up, Ganguly bore the brunt of it. East made way for the West as Dalmiya and his trusted lieutenants were ousted in India’s most elaborately covered election (thank you news channels, we don’t know what we would have done without you), by Powar and his men. In came Dravid as captain and a team of youngsters was quickly whipped into a winning combination, with Coach Chappell. The nation gave Dravid a hand, Chappell gave Kolkata the middle finger and Ganguly fans slowly realized that it would take more than an arm and a leg to see him back in the team.
Leaked e-mails, undisguised discrimination, political power plays... With the kind of rumours and controversies stirred up by the media, it was not just a team that needed the showers after every match. Every time one watched the sports news on TV, one longed for a cleansing experience soon after.
2006 – what’s in store
As for 2006, our chances of winning are most likely to be the same as they were at the beginning of 2005 – let’s just hope the results vary.
There are two other things that aren’t likely to change. One, the media shall continue to glorify mediocrity and deify players based on a single performance. So as a nation, we shall continue to cheer individual performances than team victories. And two, the star-struck fan shall continue to let his heart rule his head, which explains the reason why he loses his head, every time he loses heart when his team does badly. In both cases, the immediate option is to take to the streets and create a spectacle. It may not help soothe one's anger, but it sure as hell makes for chart-busting television rating points.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'Hungry for icons' on 25 December, 2005)
What’s it about Indian sports that we seem to be doing so well on just about every turf? Sportspersons (other than cricketers) have finally begun their journey from the sports page to page 3 and along the way, have been stopping at page 17 (for a product endorsement), page 12 (for a controversial statement that's now providing editorial meat) and page 5 (for supporting a social cause). Small wonder that, considering the kind of successes they've been having for a year now. Winning a cricket series abroad (Now that Chappell's here, we will), a grand slam singles title (not yet, but it’ll happen), an F1 championship (we're getting there), a chess title (well, almost), a hockey gold (hold on, we'll be right back)... Wait a minute - what exactly have we been celebrating all year?
2005 was a year when the magic of marketing, media and megabucks finally caught up. As a nation, we stopped looking for success - who has the time for it when we're busy looking for icons? It was the also year of spats- Sourav vs Chappell, Baichung Bhutua vs East Bengal, Gerhard Rach vs the Indian Hockey Federation... While the stars shone for the likes of Sania and Dravid, others like Sourav found themselves in an elevator headed towards basement parking - the most convenient place to begin a ride into the sunset from.
Let’s take a quick look at what 2005 had in store for Indian fans:
Tennis – love all, conquer none
There's something that happens to our boys and girls who win junior grand slams - they don't grow up enough to win the senior editions of the same. Instead they deftly sidestep and shift to tag teams, comfortably winning doubles titles and Davis Cup ties. Now, there has been another shift - to mixed doubles, and no, we shall not look down upon it, because that's where our grand slam titles for 2005 have come from - two to be precise, in Wimbledon and the US Open, thanks to Mahesh Bhupathi. (In India, a ‘grand slam’, until recently, was when a player hurled the racquet in disgust onto the court after losing a match.)
As for Sania, she became the first Indian sportswoman to feature on the cover of Time magazine and ended 2005 with a WTA ranking of 34. In a country where a star's pout can send millions into raptures, imagine what reaching the third round of a grand slam can do.
Football – getting a kick out of nothing
If there ever was a similarity between us and the US – it’s football. Both versions are limited to the country, are not followed outside and in both cases, the teams think the world of themselves. One can’t help but wonder about the 'Closed User Group' mode of the game, where crores of rupees change hands as clubs battle it out for God-knows-what, with none of them managing to reach Asian standards, leave alone the bigger league.
Today, we’re a country ranked 135th in the world, struggling to find a place at the top even in the SAF games and the SAFF Cup, with Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan giving us a run for every goal. (If India beating Bangladesh in the 2005 SAFF Cup is news, so be it.) That’s why, it doesn't come as a big surprise that the biggest football event of the year was India skipper Baichung Bhutia's 'spat' (by now, the most popular word in Indian sport) with East Bengal and his subsequent signing up with Malaysian outfit M K Land.
Hockey - past perfect, future tense
The story so far – Coach Rajinder Singh is thrown out just a month before the Athens Olympics begins. German-born Gerhard Rach is appointed Coach and after a series of debacles, Rach resigns. Rajinder Singh Junior takes his place and gets to hold his place till the 2006 World Cup.
With such a stormy start to the year, it was only natural that each day was a rocky ride through turbulence. We came fifth in the six-nation KT Cup women's hockey tournament held in Seoul, finished fourth in the junior world cup in Netherlands, stood last in the eight-nation mini world cup, managed only a 11th position in the junior women's world cup at Chile, finished seventh out of eight nations in the Rabo cup and fifth out of seven nations at the Azlan Shah Cup. And in the recently concluded Sahara Champions Trophy, we finished last. Not surprising if past performances are anything to go by - all we've managed so far is one bronze in 17 years.
F1 – all gas, no speed
India's first Formula One racing driver. The Fastest Indian in the World. 2005 in F1 was another year where the journey became the destination itself. Finishing 15th in the Australian Grand Prix, Narain Karthikeyan notched up his first points in the United States Grand Prix, finishing fourth as most teams pulled out for safety reasons. Otherwise, his best race position has been 11th,at the Malaysian and the Belgian Grand Prix. If the whole year can be captured into a frozen moment, it is the unfortunate incident of Karthikeyan crashing into the wall at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. He was fortunate to escape unhurt, but it signified a dead end for India in 2005, as far as F1 was concerned.
Golf – Gentlemen only, losing forbidden?
2005 ended with Jyoti Randhawa heading the league of global golfing Indians with a world ranking of 123 and the rest following - without trying to crowd those before them - at a leisurely pace. We have, for long, celebrated the first Indian golfer on the PGA Tour, the first Indian to win a European Tour Order of Merit event and the first Indian to qualify for the British Open. Sometime in the future, we shall also look forward to celebrating victories.
Cricket – a nation’s drug
Is there a word that remains to be printed or said on the game? Thanks to over-zealous news channels, irate Ganguly fans and poor performances abroad, 2005 saw cricket remain a hapless housewife – bearing the brunt of the common man’s pleasures and pains. And at every available opportunity, he took to the streets - to celebrate or to condemn.
While the country was sent into raptures by emerging stars like Pathan and Dhoni, old warhorses like Sachin and Kumble reasserted their dominance over the game. India continued to be Pakistan's bunny in one-dayers and continued its poor run of tournament finals as it slipped to its 12th defeat in the last 16 finals. A pressure cooker situation built up at the BCCI and when it predictably blew up, Ganguly bore the brunt of it. East made way for the West as Dalmiya and his trusted lieutenants were ousted in India’s most elaborately covered election (thank you news channels, we don’t know what we would have done without you), by Powar and his men. In came Dravid as captain and a team of youngsters was quickly whipped into a winning combination, with Coach Chappell. The nation gave Dravid a hand, Chappell gave Kolkata the middle finger and Ganguly fans slowly realized that it would take more than an arm and a leg to see him back in the team.
Leaked e-mails, undisguised discrimination, political power plays... With the kind of rumours and controversies stirred up by the media, it was not just a team that needed the showers after every match. Every time one watched the sports news on TV, one longed for a cleansing experience soon after.
2006 – what’s in store
As for 2006, our chances of winning are most likely to be the same as they were at the beginning of 2005 – let’s just hope the results vary.
There are two other things that aren’t likely to change. One, the media shall continue to glorify mediocrity and deify players based on a single performance. So as a nation, we shall continue to cheer individual performances than team victories. And two, the star-struck fan shall continue to let his heart rule his head, which explains the reason why he loses his head, every time he loses heart when his team does badly. In both cases, the immediate option is to take to the streets and create a spectacle. It may not help soothe one's anger, but it sure as hell makes for chart-busting television rating points.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'Hungry for icons' on 25 December, 2005)
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