SANIA MIRZA AND MITHALI RAJ BAT FOR WOMEN SPORTSPERSONS

Sporting biggies, including Sania Mirza, Mithali Raj and Pullela Gopichand, on Wednesday sent out a strong message on encouraging women players and developing essential infrastructure to promote sports in the country.

Participating in a session on sports at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) here, Indian women's cricket team captain Mithali made a pitch for upgrading sports infrastructure at schools so that more and more girl students can get a chance to play.

She backed up her argument, saying that after the Indian team's success in recent Women's World Cup tournament, a lot of young girls have started showing interest in taking up sports, including cricket, but lack of proper infrastructure is coming in the way.

India put up a strong show in the previous edition of the Women's World Cup though it lost out to England in the final.

"I don't get to see schools having infrastructure for one.

To a question on who should run sports, he opined that the government would need to play its role because "if the industry were to run sports, it will run a few sports".

He maintained that traditional sports like wrestling, kho-kho, kabaddi, archery and malkhamb do not require expensive equipment and can be played in a small area. "... this is what the traditional sport was. We have moved from that space where people play for that reason to a space which goes into marketable, advertising... expensive equipment," Gopichand added.

About packaging of sports like kabaddi, he said the sport is great example of how things could turn around.

Gopichand also emphasised on the need to recognise local talent. "We need to celebrate our local players. Sports diplomacy, sports entrepreneurs, sports physiotherapists, sports administration, all of them need to be looked at. We need to celebrate sports by itself," he suggested, making the point that "sports needs to be played, it is beyond winning".