India Beyond Cricket

India is world champions in the 20-20 format of cricket....... WOW, everyone will always remember who won the first world cup of 20-20 form of cricket. Great. All congratulations to the winning team.

Secularism has been one thing impacting my views since childhood. I feel strongly that all religions should be treated equally. To generalize all equal things should be treated equally, so is it with sports. But do we treat sports equally? Definitely not. Being the Hypocrite that I am like many of my fellow countrymen, I do say that well there are more sports that we should look to and not restrict our reach as well as reach of the younger generation to just a few games. The sports that earns the maximum money spends the most in publicity and hence are famous. Simple economics plays its part here too. But that keeps many of the other Heroes, whom I think are as great a sportsman as Yuvraj Singh in their respective field, away from the adequate due appreciation and adulation that they deserve.

I gave it a thought and tried to pick a few sportsman whom I have not known so well before but feel that they have made remarkable impact for India in their sports in recent times. So here are a few games and a few more heroes to be applauded.

Car Racing

While most of us sitting here were cursing India for losing to Newzealand on 16th of September 2007 in a crucial 20-20 match, there was a happy man standing on the podium of the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit, tears flowing down his cheeks as he was proudly standing straight, with a head held high, listening to the tune of Indian national anthem being played for the first time for a GP2 Series winner. Karun Chandok was the man of the moment. He made his father's (Vicky Chandok, a Motor Sport Veteran himself) and many others' who are looking at car racing as a career, dreams come true. A true hero, appreciated even by Alonso, was missed back in India for that was the peak 0f 20-20 world cup.

Archery

While the people of the country were looking at the awesome performance of RP singh and Rohit sharma snatching the match from the home team South Africa, there were a group of archers in China fighting to get a spot and qualification for India in Olympics 2008 . Archery has been traditionally the sport of Tribals in India, but recently a whole lot of non-tribal youngsters has been making waves in the world archery. India had to qualify for the Olympics 2008 in archery and the whole effort had to be put in by group of 3 archers, lead by Jayant Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Rahul Banerjee. South Korea were the favourites to win the gold and chinese being the host nation had an advantage in itself. Malaysia came up with an upset beating South Korea in the semifinals while India went past the home team China in a nail biting 220-214 win. In the finals on 20th It was even more closer as India beat Malaysia 222-219 to win the men’s recurve team gold at the Asian archery championships. Surely this is a sport to look out for in Olympics for Indian sports fan.


Billiards

After the impressive array of sportsmen like like Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira and Geet Sethi comes the name of Pankaj Advani. One of the finest billiard players in the world today. Winning many different championships across the world, he is one of the only 2 players to have won both the billiards and snooker amateur world titles.

While the cricket fans were watching a treat of a match between India and Pakistan which led to the first bowl out of a 20-20 match, there was a man standing over a cloth covered cushioned billiard table in Singapore defending for the first time in his life a world title. Pankaj Advani won that thrilling encounter to defend his title and retain the IBSF World Billiards title. What more could you ask for the person he defeated was also an Indian Dhruv Sitwala.


Hockey

Ofcourse we need to mention over here the Asia cup win that we had in hockey this year, an unbeaten team going on to win over the favourites. There is more to come for sure from this bunch of enthusiastic youngsters. Watch them in Olympics 2008.

Apart from them there are many who not just need to be mentioned but also to be encouraged so that they bring Indian glory in their field of sports. Why dont we fight for Olympics the way we want to fight for Oscars.

Badminton

There are many whom you might remember for this game but I just heard about a truly gifted child Rohit. Though not one of the best India has ever produced and the stories thereafter here is a child who fought his shortcomings to become a true champion in life. He is an inspiration to thousands of deaf and dumb children across the country. A 15 year old Rohit Bhakar, has recently beat the national under 16 champion in badminton thrice. Let us cherish these heroes who have come over a thousand things apart from learning the sports to reach to the very best levels in sports.

Squash

Joshna Chinappa, and Ritwik Bhattacharya, two of the real good squash players who have won coveted British open under 16 and under 19 championships are 2 players for us to look out for. Not to forget the coach for the game of squash who is taking the game to a new level Cyrus Poncha is going to bring India many accolades in the year to come. Saurav Ghosal and Deepika Pallikal are the other two players making it big in their world rankings.

Apart from this there are many in the shooting sports, Athletics, Boxing, wrestling, our own game of Kabbadi, swimming, wushu, Hockey and football whom we need to cheer for them to perform and take India to international glory.

Let us not ignore the world of non-cricket sport which is as important for the country as cricket. Let us cheer our boys and girls , wherever they are and whatever game they are playing.
Let us come together and celebrate the rising power of emerging Indian sports.