Pick up any newspaper of the country and turn to sports page, 98% of the news items belong to cricket and cricketing stars. From last few days, as the FIFA FEVER is on, the newspapers are paying attention to it. Slovenia defeated Algeria or classy Germany crushed Australia by 4-0 are only the headlines of the top newspapers, they are not an issue to be discussed later. Especially, we Indians will read it and forget it after wards. The only thing which we can do is to criticize the Indian soccer team for not being even able to qualify for the Fifa World Cup. Recently, read a lot of articles in leading newspaper regarding the failure of Indian football team to qualify in the World Cup.
The major issue of concern is not the world cup and the football being played in the dark continent, the concern is about cricket, which spread as a religion in our country. September 2007 will definitely be remembered in the history of Indian sports as an important month which gave India dual achievements of clinching T20 Cricket World Cup and Hockey Asia cup.The hangover of winning the T20 world cup is still alive in our memories. Every one remembers the 6 sixes of Yuvraj Singh which paved the way for the graceful victory. people remember each and every bit of information regarding this victory but do we remember the marvelous performances by our hockey players which led to the smashing victory in the Asia Cup, certainly not.
Indian cricket team received Rs. 2 crore as a tournament prize after winning the T20 WC. BCCI, announced Rs. 8 crore for winning the finals.BCCI even gave away Rs. 4 crore for reaching the fianl and Rs. 1 crore to Yuvraj Singh alone. Players received Rs. 21 lakhs from the state govts. to which they belong. Players received Apartments from Sahara worth Rs. 25 lakhs. Many special honors and awards were created for bestowing the players. Do you know hom much hockey players got after their magnificent victory? Individaul greeting message was sent by our honorable President. For the newspapers and TV channels it was just a sports news item and featured in the sports page.No special mention in electronic media or print media about the players. whereas media went gaga over the T20 WC and kept discussing about it for a whole month or even more.
Rs. 1000 for every goal scored and Rs. 1 crore for 6 sixes. What an hypocrisy? Hockey being our national game, is in excruciatingly pathetic codition. The hockey players got Rs. 5000 as match fee for winning a game of international repute. If such is the condition of hockey and such is the status of cricket in the mind of people, government and media, then why not make it the national game of the country? why is this hypocrisy about keeping hockey as the national game when the Indian masses are more concerned about cricket? Media played a major role in making cricket as the religion of the country. If it would have payed a little attention not only towards hockey but also the other games flourishing in the country, we could have won more medals in olympics and other international sports events.
The bloody hypocrites sitting in the media never allowed any one to rise, whereas its role was to inform the truth and make people aware. They just played the ugly game of politics of highlighting someone and suppressing others.
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