I am a total sports freak... cricket, football, tennis, F1 are some that I regularly follow. Some people find it quite...um...shall we say...surprising...that a girl is so updated about sports... I often hear my girlfriends complaining that I have long discussions with their boyfriends where they feel ‘left out’... Yeah, I must admit that talking to guys in general is much more easy if you can talk sports. It puts them at ease and they’re really surprised and delighted that they can talk about such a ‘guy’ thing to a girl too. But I don’t follow sports for all this. This is a by-product of my interest in sports.
Let me start with cricket first. I am an Indian. I worship Sachin Tendulkar. Period.
Next up football. My brothers first started following EPL. I got interested due to two primary reasons. First: the sportsmen. They looked like Greek gods on field. Like it was their kingdom and that they ruled the field. Whenever Henry got the ball and started the run...he was unstoppable!! He got me hooked to Arsenal and now I’ve found Cesc Fabregas who has made sure I won’t go to any other club. Second: the money. There was no IPL back then. It was just so ‘wow’ that a Real Madrid could spend that kind of money on a Ronaldo (The oldie fat Brazil ka Ronaldo!). A player demanding those sums of money was a thing that was unheard of in India. The kind of economics these clubs were a part of...fascinated me to no end. It still does. But now I can see it closer home at the IPL. This business of sport meets entertainment will be bigger than the EPL. Maybe not in terms of fans and their loyalty but it is in terms of sheer MONEY!!!
Roger Federer and Micheal Schumacher got me hooked to tennis and F1, and I continue to follow them with the zeal and spirit of a true fan!
Only recently did i go for my 1st cricket match in a stadium...live... it was worth everything...hell it was worth more than anything i gave for it the. Mumbai won. Sachin was the man of the match. We saw him score 71*. But more than anything else it was one big party. Everyone was there to have a great time and cheer their team. and we cheered like never before... Its not for nothing that players ALWAYS acknowledge the support they get from the Mumbai crowd. The atmosphere was electric. We actually thought that watching a match on TV will be so much boring after this. And the best part was that between overs we had a DJ instead of those rubbish advertisements. (Football is so much better...no ads for 45 mins!! :) :)...and so is tennis and F1...less advertisement more sport. ) Brilliant experience. I made a promise to myself that day. Every year...1 IPL match. Possibly Mumbai Indians.
But why did I start following sports in the first place??!!
I grew up in a house with 2 brothers, my parents and my grand-parents. I wanted to be the captain of the ship. Not the crew. I always wanted to be my dad’s eldest Son... My grandfather’s eldest Grandson... I was an example my brothers were asked to follow. Sport was the one thing where they beat me.
I was a quizzer so knowledge about all fields was important and Sports comprised of a chunk of the world knowledge!! (Till date I start reading a newspaper from the last page...so first comes sports, then business then the national political news, local news and the last are the headlines.)
And I hated being left out at conversations just because they veered to ball.
Today I love being involved in sports in some way or the other. I paid little attention to it in school and focussed only on academics. If I regret something, it is not taking sports seriously for the first 15 years of my life. Today my cousin plays cricket for his school. He says he wants to take it up as a profession. My aunt is shocked and enraged. A boy who scores 90%+ in every exam says he wants to quit studying and play cricket for a living. Any Maru parent will raise eyebrows if not object it. But I do support him. Of course he can’t give up studies. He can study full time till 12th and then do studies by correspondence. Completing education is extremely important. After that you can chase your dreams. Cricket in India is a brilliant sport to be great at. Ask Sachin.
Sport can be a brilliant career today. Today more than ever before. The kind of pride you feel when you represent your country is unparalleled. The money is good if you are good enough. So why not get the best talent out there. More than 1 billion population and just 1 olympic gold!! We were the world benchmark for hockey. We can be that again. We just need to make sure people want to be Sachin Tendulkar than Lalit Modi. We need more trophies. We need more Golds!! Like a Nike slogan goes..'No Games Only Sport!!'
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