A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

India do not go to the Asian Games

The International Olympic Committee takes note that the country with the biggest cricket market doesn’t care for such sporting events.

They will realize that there is no guarantee that India will send a team to the Olympics if the sport does become a part of the Olympic program.

Will considerably weaken cricket’s chances of joining the Olympic movement.

If India had gone to the Asian Games

Good TV ratings and attendance figures ( quite possible with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participating) would have given cricket’s Olympic chances a boost.

The fringe players get a chance to play an international tournament and that is never a bad thing.

An opportunity to win an Asian Games gold. We usually win only 4-5 of those at every event. So, another one would have meant a lot.

An opportunity for an Olympic medal if cricket was included in the Olympic program. And that would have been a huge deal. The likes of Sachin Tendulkar would’ve willingly agreed to play.

All expenses paid trip for Ratnakar Shetty and other BCCI mandarins for the Asian Games and possibly for the Olympics as well.

A chance to complete cricket’s domination of Indian sports. After all, the Asian Games and the Olympics were the only times when a majority of Indian sports fans paid attention to other sports.

The likes of Shashank Manohar and team would get to work with Suresh Kalmadi. They could share best practises and other trade secrets.

There are a few more but I guess the point has already been made.

Just when everyone else is trying to do whatever it takes to get cricket included in the Olympic program, the BCCI have decided to throw a spanner in the works.

The BCCI does not believe in the Olympic movement but they do seem to have borrowed from the Olympic Motto.

Their motto is Atius, Altius Altius.

Just when you think the BCCI can’t get any worse, they come back to dazzle you with a higher level of ineptness which in turn makes your anger levels go higher.

P.S – The BCCI could damage cricket’s chances further. They should bar any cricketer who plays in the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games or any such event from playing in the IPL. After all, these events like the ICL haven’t been sanctioned by the BCCI.

Whatever the likes of Suresh Kalmadi and others of his ilk have to say about the transparent manner in which they run the sports federations, we all know why these guys never want to stop their selfless work for the good of sports in this country. It’s the small matter of power, prestige, kickbacks , foreign junkets, nepotism and the opportunity to hog the limelight and the dais if a sportsperson from their sport brings glory to India ( in spite of the federations best efforts to stop him from doing so).

But there is one name whose presence in the lifetime list belies all logic.

Ashoke Ghosh of the Kho Kho federation

Can’t understand what this gentleman has to gain from being the lifetime president of the Kho Kho federation

This sport has no equipment ( all it needs is two small poles). So no opportunity for making money through tenders.

The team doesn’t play in any international tournaments ( unlike Kabbaddi which has international tournaments). So no foreign trips and no felicitation ceremonies.

As for power and nepotism, I don’t think any undeserving kin of politicians, administrators or bureaucrats are trying to join any kho kho teams.

There are no sponsorship or TV deals.

Kho Kho is not even part of the CWG. So they haven’t been given a budget to supposedly improve their players for the 2010 games.

And unlike their counterparts in the boxing federation, the female kho kho players haven’t been used to serve tea or serve some other carnal desires of the federation members. And if they have, then it’s not been considered important enough to be reported by the media. Another reason why it is difficult to understand Mr Ghosh’s unflinching hold on the president’s post.

I am surprised Kalmadi even bothered calling him for the meeting of the federation heads. In fact, the news reports on this meeting are the only results which you get if you Google Ashoke Ghosh and Kho Kho.

Ashoke Ghosh should thank M S Gill that his decision to cap tenures has finally made him Google worthy.

Couldn’t even find what he does when he is not presiding over the Kho Kho federation ( or is he a professional president ?)

Kho means to chase.

I really cant understand what Mr Ghosh is Kho-ing.

The country is counting on you once again

The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has been worried for a long time the venues will not be completed in time for the 2010 games in Delhi. The organizing committee on the other hand have continued to promise everyone that the nothing of that sort will happen. The media also had chosen to ignore the matter for the longest possible time.

Now things have fallen so much behind schedule that the CGF president wants the prime minister’s intervention to speed up things. That’s just step away from asking for divine intervention.

The Organizing Committee are totally unruffled, however, coming out with yet another statement that Delhi will be ready at any cost.
The ball is now in the prime minister and the sports minister’s court. With the media having suddenly risen to the occasion, the ministers are definitely aware of the gravity of the situation. They can either play the autonomy card a la Mani Shankar Aiyer; claiming that government intervention will be tantamount to a violation of the IOC Charter (which says that sports bodies should be run autonomously) or they can save India from losing face in front of the entire world – something which will seriously dent our chances of hosting any major events in the future.

If no action is taken and the CGF takes the unprecedented step of moving the Games to Australia (which has already been placed on the stand bye) it will be more than the small matter of 12,000 crores going down the drain. These games are meant to showcase what modern India is all about – a country on the rise and on the move. Not being able to put it all together will highlight the exact opposite and jeopardize all our claims to being a new world power.

To the average Indian sports fan, it will hurt as much as the failure to qualify for the men’s hockey event of the last Olympics, if not more. There is so much at stake here.

The sports minister had sacked Indian Hockey Federation chief KPS Gill after the Beijing debacle. But the damage had already been done. So waiting for the present organizing committee to fail will be a calamitous mistake. The minsters need to pre-empt that and take some quick measures.

Disbanding the current one and getting a more professional and capable team will be a good place to start. A leaf can be taken out of the Athens 2004 example, when caught in similar situation, Greece averted a modern day Greek tragedy by getting the best man or shall we say woman to do the job. Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki was brought back to head the organizing committee and she re-energized the preparations ensuring a highly successful hosting of the games.

There is no shortage of capable people in this country who can handle an operation of this magnitude and save India’s blushes. The two ministers just need to put one in charge before its too late.

But do the two of them have the courage to take such a decision. Removing Suresh Kalmadi will not be easy. He is an influential member of parliament who belongs to the same party as the two ministers. It will be a public loss of face for him and he will fight tooth and nail, using all his political clout to scuttle such a move.

Manmohan Singh created a name for himself during the liberalisation process and during the nuclear deal. The fate of another important chapter in the history of modern India is now in his hands. Will he show the same conviction and do the right thing for the country or buckle under political considerations?

The entire country wants to know.

Related Article

What the Indian media isn’t telling you about the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games

Betrayed by his wife and betrayed by the judicial system

The Syed Modi murder case is now closed.

A Lucknow sessions court on Saturday sentenced the lone surviving accused Bhagwati Singh to life without establishing any motive for the murder. It also refused to go into alleged links of the murderer with politician Sanjay Singh and Modi’s ex-wife Amita Singh, saying no conspiracy was established by the CBI.

I wonder if this a failure on part of the CBI or a failure of our judicial system?

Why did the judiciary and the CBI spend 21 years playing out this charade if they didn’t have any real intention of bringing the actual perpetrators of this crime to justice? Wonder what they were doing all this while.

How difficult was it to see the actual motive of this murder and to identify the people who had that motive? We all know what happened after the murder.

Were Sanjay Singh and Amita Singh ( don’t think its right to address her by her slain husband’s surname) interrogated sufficiently and rigorously enough by the CBI to get the truth out of them; a confession which would have given the judiciary the much necessary proof.

Did the CBI use any of the new sophisticated techniques like the Polyagraph or the Nacro-analysis in this case?

Now with the case closed, I don’t think there are going to be any answers.

Syed Modi will have no justice and no redemption in this life.

The Taliban has a problem with almost every activity which regular people enjoy, most notably sporting ones.

They are on an endless banning spree, condemning a new sport every now and then for being unholy and un-Islamic. And they come up with a reason every time for why the sport was branded as such.

Sometimes it’s because there is too much skin show in the sport. That makes every sport where the athlete has to wear shorts or vests as a readymade target for being banned by the Taliban.

The jihadi outfit also mandates every man to sport a beard which makes it virtually impossible for anyone to practise a sport which calls for a streamlined body to reduce air or water resistance. Therefore there is no future for speed related sports like swimming and running.

Now the extremely popular sport of cricket has also been added to the Taliban hit-list. They feel it’s too long and hence people waste too much time over it. They feel that the ban on cricket will free up a lot of time and the populace will be more productive. The longer duration of cricket also interferes with the regular Namaz as people are too engrossed in the action to take a religious break.

Where does that leave sports in the Taliban does ruled areas of Afghanistan and the areas deemed ungovernable by Pakistan?

Is there any sport that the Taliban cannot find fault in?

Or rather, a sport which serves their purpose of glorifying Islamic Jihad and rubbing America’s nose into the ground?

Looks like we do have something.

Why don’t they try baseball?

The players are as covered as a human being can possibly be. It doesn’t take a long time to finish and can be played in the rocky terrains of the areas they rule.

But wait, isn’t it supposed to be the national pastime of the United States – a country the Taliban loathes and hates.

Well, that is exactly why the Taliban should be supporting baseball.

Because the United States suck big time at international baseball – losing regularly to the likes of South Korea and Japan as well as tiny nations like Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba. The national pastime is becoming an international embarrassment for the sports loving Americans.

Tiny Puerto Rico celebrate after thumping the mighty Americans

Is there a better way to motivate the jihadi fighters by showing them videos of players from smaller nations out-duelling the big daddy that is the USA at their own game, quite literally? And at the same time everyone is covered from head to toe and the action finishes just in time for the holy prayers.

Isn’t it similar to the way, another set of underdogs (the jihadis) are supposed to beat the Americans at their other favourite pastime – playing global policeman.

I guess we have a winner.

Dubai denied Israeli player Shahar Peer a Visa to play in the Dubai WTA event.

The entire tennis community is up in arms against their decision.

The WTA CEO Larry Scott says that such a move is not pardonable and Dubai stands the risk of losing the high-profile event.

Unnamed event organizers say that there were security issues owing to the recent developments in the region – Israel’s latest attacks in the Gaza Strip.

Scott countered that he had already warned the Dubai organizers last year when an Israeli doubles team was denied entry in the event. He had given them a year’s time to fix their security issues.

Ostensibly the security issues weren’t fixed and hence Peer was denied a visa leading to a possible end of the road for the Dubai event.

But does Mr. Scott really believe that this kind of security issue can be fixed?

Forget an assassination attempt, what happens if some half-mad Arab just flings a fire cracker at Shahar Peer or a hurls a shoe at her or just hits her with a tennis ball.

Is there any security in the world which can stop some fanatic from doing so?

The most powerful country in the world with the most professional and fool-proof security set-up could not stop their President (the most well guarded human on the planet) from being hit by a shoe.

And Mr. Scott should know that as he is an American

What would be Israel’s reaction if Shahar Peer has the most innocuous incident causing the most minor of injuries (say just a small bruise)

Would they ignore it as a minor prank or make a seven course meal out of it?

I am guessing Israel either bombs the hell out of a few tennis facilities in the Gulf state or just fires a few extra rockets in the Gaza Strip.

This is one possibility if Shahar Peer played in Dubai

Would the WTA Tour or the United States or Mr Larry Scott take any measure to stop them from doing so?

Your guess is as good as mine

So when Dubai has to choose between a ban on their tournament and a catastrophic repercussion (from Israel) involving human fatalities, what is the prudent decision for them to make.

The colour of this medal isn't good enough for India's high sporting standards ?

The Padma Awards are given by the Government of India generally to Indian citizens to recognize their exceptional and distinguished contribution in various spheres of activity including the Arts, Education, Industry, Literature, Science, Sports, Social Service and public life. There are 4 of them – the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri in decreasing order of significance.

In 2009, two persons whose efforts were not found to be either exceptional or distinguished were 2008 Olympic bronze medal winners – Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar. However, Olympic gold medallist, Abhinav Bindra has been awarded with the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.

Previously, 2004 Olympic Silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was conferred with the Padma Shri – the very next year in 2005. On the other hand 1994 Bronze medallist Leander Paes had to wait for 5 years to get his due. By then he had also won numerous grand slam titles and led India to some memorable Davis Cup triumphs – my guess is that the award was more a consequence of these than the Olympic effort. Another Olympic bronze medallist Karnam Malleswari was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999, much before her Olympic achievement in 2000. The only other individual bronze-medallist in the Olympics, Kashaba Jadhav, never received any of the Padma Awards.

It is very clear now that ‘just winning an Olympic bronze medal’ isn’t good enough to be considered Padma Award worthy. After all, we have had 5 of those in just 25 Olympic Games.

Somebody please tell this to Vijender and Sushil who are feeling hurt and angry after being ignored for the awards.

The government is not unreasonable. They have recognized all the exceptional sporting efforts of 2008 – like in the case of spin bowler spinner Harbhajan Singh. He has been rightly recognized for his ‘exceptional and distinguished’ effort of slapping a fellow Indian cricketer in front of the whole world.

Finally a man to end the despair?

Recently, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Secretary-General Randhir Singh resigned from the ad-hoc committee set up to run Indian hockey after the IHF was disbanded in April. He had been complaining for some time that decisions were not being taken jointly but arbitrarily by one or two influential persons in the committee. This complaint has also been expressed by other members and the national selectors. In fact things have been so bad that the convener, Aslam Sher Khan, had also tendered his resignation a couple of months back.

Although, Indian Hockey has been run in an ad-hoc manner for as long as I can remember, it is quite shocking that the ad-hoc committee continues to govern over hockey matters in this country, almost 8 months after it was set up as a stop gap arrangement!!! Things are falling apart and members are pulling in different directions. Suddenly, the euphoria over the sacking of K.P.S Gill seems a distant memory. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ex-cop is chuckling to himself thinking of the mess that has followed his dictatorial reign. At least there used to be consensus decision making during his time.

In the middle of all this, another politician has thrown his hat in the ring for the IHF president elections, whenever they are going to happen. Ex Member of Parliament Gufram Afzal sounds rather confident of his chances and has confirmed that he would relinquish the president ship of the Bhopal Hockey Association after getting elected to the IHF post. The funny thing is that Mr.Afzal is not even a member of the Bhopal body and is taking his first baby steps towards getting involved with hockey administration. Isn’t that music to every hockey fan’s ears?

On the playing field, our senior side started the Argentina tour on a bright note, winning the first two games, and almost brought some cheer to the few diligent followers of Indian hockey. But soon they were tormenting us, losing the next two games rather tamely.

Anyways, enough of the bad news – Now to the serendipity part.

The ad-hoc committee have just met and interviewed Spaniard Jose Brasa for the vacant post of the Indian men’s hockey coach. They were impressed with the homework the Spaniard had done, backing his observations of Indian hockey with technical data with medical inputs. He showed a fine understanding of India and its culture and had a comprehensively detailed plan to put Indian hockey back on the rails. Brasa comes with an impressive resume and has coached the Spanish women’s side to gold in the 1992 Olympics. Even Randhir Singh, who wasn’t involved in interviewing the Spaniard, conceded that Brasa was world class coach and perfect for the job.

And this isn’t the best part.

The best part is that Brasa has refused to take up the post, irrespective of whatever obscene amount of money the IHF can offer, unless he is assured of full technological support. Very clearly he isn’t a mercenary who is only interested in the lure of the lucre. So, unless, the IHF bosses plan to look at someone else, they will have to do something which has never been done in the history of the game in India – and the lack of which has ensured that we have continued to fall behind the rest of the world. Time and time again, Indian as well as foreign coaches have rued the lack of technology being used to prepare the Indian national side. That the IHF has been completely enamoured with Brasa and no other alternative coaching names are available, leaves the ad-hoc committee with almost no choice. They will have to relent and god willing (I am very superstitious about this), in spite of all the chaos that has followed India’s failure to qualify for Beijing; we will soon have a world class hockey coach with full technological support. If that isn’t discovering happiness in the most unlikely of places (read Indian Hockey), then I don’t know what is.

The government needs to come up with something better to appease the sports community

Almost at the end of 2008, the Indian sports ministry came up with a shocker – they decided that only players holding Indian passports could represent the country at sporting events. This decision was not the consequence of any event; the govt just pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Not even the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), which is headed by a Member of Parliament, had any clue that this was in the offing. I cannot understand why for the first time in living memory the govt took an active step and not a reactive one –Something which has been unanimously criticized by the sporting fraternity as an unnecessary impediment. They have earned the distinction of becoming probably the only nation to do so – even the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) do not bar such sportspersons. For once the sports federations – the IOA and the AITA, the sportspersons and the fans were all on one page. Thankfully, the govt has consented to the request of the IOA to re-consider this ruling.

But this begs the question – Is this politically motivated? The sporting fraternity was completely against it but wouldn’t something like this appeal to the jingoistic kinds – people who don’t know a thing about sports but take every opportunity to stir up a rabid nationalist frenzy?

There has never been any protest against the inclusion of a PIO (Player of Indian Origin). It’s not that these overseas players have limited the opportunities for home-bred players. We haven’t had a flood of PIOs flocking home to represent the country. And not even that other countries have been complaining that India has benefitted from the inclusion of such players. Even mighty sporting powers like the US, Australia and the UK don’t have a rule like this – and they have benefitted far more. Also, if the sports ministry was so convinced about it then why have agreed to re-consider it so quickly.

If the sports ministry really wanted to do something for Indian sports, then why not first tackle the more obvious and more pertinent issues – and there is a long list of those – the problem of infrastructure, selection of over-age players, proliferation of drug usage, inefficiency and corruption of sporting federations and so on and so forth. Or why not just make the passport issuing process faster for those who are Indian citizens – they would have surely noticed the trouble Saina Nehwal had to go though recently. They would have spent long hours thinking hard before they came up with the passport ‘idea’. They probably though they had another winner like the ‘OBC reservation rule’. But sadly for them their rule has found few takers. If only there were a few true sports fans amongst them.

India Today has come up with a list of the 10 biggest controversies in Indian sports. I agree with most of them but there are a few that we don’t find worthy of this list. I think somewhere there was a predisposition towards the controversies that had been well covered by the magazine. Never mind. We decided to come up with a list of 10 other important controversies from Indian sports, some of which were worthy of being in the first list itself.

Here goes in no particular order.

What gender did it bring more shame to?

The girl who was a guy

This was completely bizarre – so much so that it found a mention on ESPN’s US website. Santhi Sounderajan won a silver medal at the 2006 Doha Asian Games and then failed a gender test. She was found to be missing the sexual characteristics of a woman. The medal had to be returned and this incident brought us shame and disrepute. Things like this were common in the 1930’s and 40’s but there is excuse for something like this happening in today’s times. The government in the athlete’s home state of Tamil Nadu added to the controversy by refusing to recognize the verdict and felicitating the athlete in the same manner as the other medal-winners.

Kerry Packer revisited -The ICL controversy

This one has a strong case to be in the India Today list. Subhash Chandra emulated Kerry Packer by setting up his own cricket league after losing out on the broadcast rights, in spite of having the highest bid. The broadcast bidding is quite a controversy in itself. The BCCI wasn’t ready to play along –they banned the League and all its stakeholders and then upped the ante by starting a far bigger league of their own. Since then the BCCI and the Zee group have been at war and have sucked the entire cricket world into their dispute. The controversy looks like dragging on forever with both parties engaged in a war of attrition and there being no resolution to the matter in sight.

The monkey and the ugly Australians

This one surely had to be in the India Today list. It almost caused India to withdraw from the series and led to a public outcry against the Australian cricket team. The events leading up to it were truly inflammable – first the Aussies took gamesmanship to a new level and then rubbed salt into India’s wounds by accusing Harbhajan Singh of racism. It almost became a case of the white man’s word against the brown man’s. Insults were traded between the two sides and matters had almost come to a point of no return. Thankfully India was captained by an honourable man in Anil Kumble who got together with Ponting to iron out the issues between the two sides.

There is blood on their hands

The sportsman’s widow and her lover

Almost 20 years ago, one of India’s best badminton players, Syed Modi was shot dead by unknown assassins. His badminton playing wife, Amita, was rumoured to be having an extra-marital affair with noted politician and much married father of two children Sanjay Singh. A case was lodged against Sanjay for arranging  the killing but as it happens in our country, the well-connected politician, also a royal and a close friend of the Gandhi family, got away scot-free. A little later Sanjay divorced his first wife and married Amita. There are no witnesses and no legal proof – Just a simple matter of putting two and two together.

The cricketing god and his free chariot

Another one which India Today totally missed. India’s biggest cricket icon was gifted a Ferrari car by his sponsors FIAT on equalling Don Bradman’s record of 29 centuries. It was a 75 lakhs rupee gift but there was also the small matter of paying the customs duty of 1.15 crores. The controversy started after it was reported that the batting maestro had requested a custom duty waiver on the car despite getting it as a gift and not winning it as a prize in any tournament. That he was well capable of paying for it added to the steam and matters came to a boil when the Union government decide to oblige. There was a hue and a cry and Tendulkar’s demigod status took a hit. Finally FIAT decided to end the controversy by picking up the tab.

Indian hockey – of what happened after the Olympic failure

The qualification failure is already in the first list. But what happened after makes for a far bigger storm. The union sports minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer shed crocodile tears but failed to take any action citing the Olympic charter (which calls for autonomy of sports bodies). Thankfully, he was replaced by M.S Gill who showed more gumption by sacking the IHF chief. Then the IHF secretary was caught accepting a bribe on camera and he was also duly removed from his post. An ad hoc body was put in place but soon the power battle begun with the likes of Sahara’s JB Roy mobilizing the support of the state bodies. Ex- chief KPS Gill also refuses to let go and keeps sabotaging the activities of the ad-hoc body. And the former secretary is now flexing his muscles in his home state’s association by setting up a parallel body with the support of the district chiefs. This one also continues to rage on

All the good work undoes the Mary Kom episode

When the champion of rights was the perpetrator himself

Milkha Singh has always trodden on a moral high ground and never shies away from speaking his mind – mostly it has to do with the government’s apathy and disrespect towards non-cricketing sports and sportspersons. He caused a furore by refusing the Arjuna Award and makes the India today list based on that controversy. And then the same gentleman, in his capacity as the chairman of the Arjuna Awards selection committee, strikes of the name of female boxer MC Mary Kom from the Khel Ratna award list. His excuse – he didn’t know which sport she competed in. Where does that rate on the scale of hypocrisy? The World Champion boxer was hurt and aggrieved at the ‘Flying Sikh’s’ lack of respect and complete ignorance. For the record, she has 4 World Championship crowns, which is 4 more than what Milkha Singh has.

The over-age controversy

This controversy raises its ugly head every time we participate in a junior event, especially in cricket, football, hockey and athletics. The most famous or rather most infamous instances are the times when we won the junior hockey world cup and finished runners-up. Numerous complaints have been registered against us but we are so driven in our efforts to capture glory at the junior events that we continue to court controversy and infamy. If only we had the same drive to win things the right way

The other cricket controversies

There are three other cricket controversies which deserve an equal mention. First the ban on Sehwag for excessiveappealing in South Africa which led to a protest by the Indian side and the final test had to be played as an unofficial one. Second is the Harbhajan slapping Sreesanth episode which remains the gold standard on how things should be brushed under the carpet. And finally the Vengsarkar – Ganguly fracas, where Ganguly claimed to have been unjustifiably dropped after a good season and the former chairman of selectors promised to explain his act and give Dada more than what he had bargained for. This event caused, as many Dada fans would claim, Sourav Ganguly to make an early exit from the game. As for Mr. Vengsarkar, we are still waiting for his reply. But as it happens in Indian cricket, a few wins and everything is forgotten.

Wardrobe malfunction?

Sania Mirza and the Beijing Olympics

Another case of a victim in the ‘India Today’ list switching roles. Sania Mirza’s mom caused a major storm when she was accommodated in the Indian contingent for the Beijing Olympics as one of the officials of the tennis squad. She was not accommodated as a one member cheering squad but as one of the coaches and her inclusion was at the cost of dropping a ‘real’ coach in Rick Leach and a couple of physios, including South African Heath Mathews, whose eventual inclusion in the squad played a crucial role in the outstanding performance of the Indian boxers. And that was not all. Sania Mirza then turned up wearing trainers and not the official uniform for the opening ceremony. Some claimed she didn’t know how to wrap a saree and the official word was that she didn’t get time as she was trying to get in some additional practise. Whatever it was, it didn’t make for a pretty picture as the Indian contingent marched in and obviously the country was incensed.