Cricket and Then Some
India’s exploits in cricket were inarguable, but its successes in other sports were sporadic. Tokyo 2020 will be an opportunity to set that record straight
VERY RARELY HAS IT HAPPENED in a country’s history that a decade starts as an opportunity and also ends as one. We blew the opportunity the Commonwealth Games (CWG) offered in 2010, and it is critical for the future of Indian Olympic sport that we make full use of Tokyo 2020 to bring things back on track. India, for the record, won 101 medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. Yet what people remember about the Games is a story of mismanagement; it is corruption that takes centre stage in public memory.
The fact that India won three medals at the Beijing Games in 2008 in its traditionally strong disciplines—shooting, boxing and wrestling— meant that a real national sporting turnaround looked possible at the start of the decade. Initially, things seemed on track, when India doubled its Beijing tally of three medals to six (two silver and four bronze) at the London Olympics in 2012. London was India’s best ever performance at the Olympics. There was a palpable sense of optimism around progress in Indian sport then.
Then came the fall at Rio in 2016. More Indian athletes—122 in all—went to Brazil than to any other Olympics before it. The mood was upbeat. So much so that the Mission Olympics cell of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) submitted an official report ahead of the games, predicting between 12 and 19 medals. The SAI detailed assessment report analysed each Indian athlete, benchmarking them with their global competition, with progress charts and estimated predictions. More than anything else, that rosy prediction was a measure of the optimism that preceded Rio among those who run Indian sport. As it turned out, Indian athletes returned with just two medals, and India was ranked #67 in the overall medals tally.
Tokyo 2020 is perhaps our final opportunity. A spectacular 2019 has set up India’s shooters for a record medal haul in Tokyo. Despite the temporary dip in form, P.V. Sindhu has a good chance to do better than the silver in Rio. In boxing and wrestling, too, there is every reason to hope for more than one medal, which could take India’s tally into double digits for the first time.
If Olympic sport is on the cusp of a breakthrough, cricket in India couldn’t have been stronger. India started the decade as the No.1 Test team in 2010 and finishes 2019 as the undisputed No. 1 team, sitting pretty at the top of the Test Championship rankings. While India hasn’t been able to replicate the same success in ICC events, they continue to be a force to reckon with in the 50 overs format, and it is highly probable that they will soon emulate the success achieved at home under M.S. Dhoni in World Cup 2011.
If anything, the Indian Test team in 2019 is even better than the Indian team at the start of the decade. Virat, then a youngster, is the undisputed best batsman in the world across formats, and in Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, India has its best ever fast bowling unit. The spin arsenal is also quite formidable, and with R. Ashwin and Ravinder Jadeja in the mix,
India’s bowling unit looks enviable, and more than capable of winning for skipper Virat the inaugural ICC Test Championship at Lord’s in 2021.
Financially, too, Indian cricket, under current BCCI chairman Sourav Ganguly, is in good health. Star TV paid Rs 37,000 crore for cricket rights in the past decade—the figure will surely touch Rs 50,000 crore in the next. With the Indian Premier League (IPL) going strong and looking like the default destination of some of the best talent in the world, first-class cricket and women’s cricket too should benefit in the coming years from the quality exposure. Indian cricket looks better than it ever has, and the best is yet to come.
Indian football, though, has yet to hit its stride. There have been some highs: the beginning of the Indian Super League (ISL) and the staging of the U-17 World Cup, for example. The national team broke into the top 100 in the world, but consistency still eludes it. The team played a superb game against Qatar recently to earn plaudits, but failed to beat Bangladesh at home and almost lost to Afghanistan in the World Cup qualifiers, bringing to the fore the question of consistency.
The ISL, already India’s foremost national tournament, will gain in strength with the addition of traditional powerhouse clubs like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal in 2020. The League has already lifted standards and India’s talismanic skipper Sunil Chhetri says, “There’s no reason why we can’t make it to the 2026 World Cup. With the quality of young players in the ISL, there is certainly hope the next decade will be ours.” That sounds like a leap of faith, but in that kind of self-belief might lie Indian football’s big hope.
That hope does not, sadly, carry into the world of Indian tennis, mired in infighting and devoid of fresh talent. With Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna all past their best, the talent cupboard looks bare. While Mahesh and Somdev Devvarman have moved on, Sania is attempting a comeback for one last shot (with Rohan) at a mixed doubles medal in Tokyo.
Writing this at the end of 2019, the sport I am most hopeful about is shooting. Nine medals, including five golds at the September World Cup in Rio and three in the yearend competition in China in November, suggest that Indian shooting is on the mark, and will reward the country’s hopes in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in July. From no medal at Rio (2016) to 15 in the past two World Cups is a remarkable turnaround, and a lot of that success is owed to the junior programme effectively managed by the NRAI (National Rifle Association of India) post Rio, based on the recommendations of the Abhinav Bindra committee, which was tasked with assessing the Rio debacle and suggesting corrective measures.
In its candid, and in parts scathing, report, the Bindra committee had written: “The committee is unanimous in its view that Indian shooting needs to change, change its attitude, its policies and practices .... At present, the system is ad hoc. There is no systemic framework in place.” To its credit, the NRAI under president Raninder Singh took the criticism on its chin, and set about putting systems in place. With Jaspal Rana and Suma Shirur, who transitioned from junior coaching to senior roles, taking care of the shooters, Indian shooting is looking in better shape.
Year 2020 will be a big one for Indian sport. Not only will Indians compete in Tokyo, two months after the Olympics, Virat will lead the team into the T20 World Cup in Australia. The spinoff benefits of a good year for Indian sports and national athletes across disciplines are hard to oversell. Let’s hope India can do some Twenty20style power hitting in 2020—the coincidence alone will be worth it.
A NATIONAL SPORTING TURNAROUND LOOKED POSSIBLE AT THE START OF THE DECADE, BUT THE RIO SHOW WAS A BLOW TO THAT AMBITION