Sports has had a very integral role in my growing up years. Has been instrumental in teaching me things which I will cherish all my life. What comes along with playing sports is you get into a habit of watching sports and when it be the biggest sporting event, one can hardly miss upon the wonderful performances.
Yes, Olympics did have its own set of controversies and accomplishments, which each one of us know and would not really want to get into the complexities of the same. What I would instead want to talk about is few things which I learnt from my sporting years, both playing and watching, and which I think are extremely relevant when it comes to leading our day-to-day lives.
I still remember, cable connection used to be a luxury at home only to be availed during our summer holidays because my mom was very particular about her kids not wasting time on the same and instead wanted us to focus on academics.
Those were the days, when on a Sunday, if there was supposed to be a cricket match being played between India and another nation, when I would get up around 5 or so in the morning to first play my favorite sports and then get ready to watch it at a friend’s place.
Probably, the ease with which one becomes disciplined with no one else telling you all the time to do so, was the biggest habit which I was drawn into, courtesy sports. Now I realize how his gets translated to any other aim or goal that you set for yourself and carve out a path to achieve the same, which comes pretty naturally to you and makes it a cake walk when it comes to adapting yourself to the grueling schedule.
While, on the field, since it’s a team sports and your victory is determined by how everyone else is performing, a team sports, no matter how much you would want to, doesn’t give you the liberty to become selfish, instead teaches you to do your job selflessly, striving towards a larger goal at all times.
Such great mentoring, especially during the formative years of a child, instills in him/her an ability to think beyond one’s profit and loss and instead focus on the common good, leaving little scope for comparisons and the resulting jealousy, in turn enabling one to lead a much happier life.
The wonderful think about sports like any other other field is the adulation that one gets when one wins. Though it has its own confidence boosting effect, at the same time, it more often than not, leads to over-confidence and ego.
But as with every other thing, this two has its in-built neutralizing formula, where in you don’t always win, but lose as well. It’s incredible how the ego comes shattering down when you brag and lose, in turn teaching you a very important lesson in life, which is to remain balanced at every point of time in your life and take success and failures in the same stride.
Another extra-ordinary thing about sports is that it teaches you that there are no limits to what you can achieve. In every tournament new records are set, which inspires every individual to have faith in his/her ability to go beyond the usual, and more importantly to think that one can actually cross the line with better efforts, thereby motivating one to continue with the hard work.
And the most important of all that sports teaches you is, that nothing comes easy. You have to put in the hard work, you have to make each moment, each day count for the incremental improvements to take place, you have to be conscious of the fact that it needs to be worked upon.
Doesn’t it sound similar to working on any social relationship in the World that we tend to get into during the wonderful journey that we all call life, be it spouse or kids?
If it does hit your realization, then make sure you and your family get into a habit of playing sports, for it’s all about playing games and the more you play with the right spirit, the more satisfied and happy you would be in life.
Source for Image: https://sites.jmu.edu/103fall14/are-youth-sports-too-competitive-draft-i/
On being asked, a Dutch guy mentioned the national sports of India to be Cricket. It was strange to hear that but not strange to comprehend as to why he said so. What to talk of this guy who has never lived in India, there are many Indians who wouldn’t be knowing the same. Is it because of the sheer amount of media coverage that a Sports like Cricket gets in our country?
I guess this might be one of the reasons. In fact, there was a whole talk to make cricket as our national sport replacing Hockey. We all come to know whenever there is an IPL going on. But we never come to know when anPHL (Premier Hockey League) is going on, and for some who are fortunate or unfortunate enough to know this, don’t really bother as to what’s going on. Why is it so? Is it because of the enormous amounts of funds and sponsors that Cricket gets?
Yes, indeed Cricket gets a lot of sponsors and media coverage, but then one is forced to wonder as to why other Sports do not get sponsors and media coverage. Is it because the funds that are supposed to be used for their publicity are not being used for the same purpose and are being withered away, as a part of corruption? Is it because the heads of the sports organizations in our country, some of which have been holding on to the post since ages (more than 10 years in some cases), have been minting money out of the funds that were supposed to be used for promotion of the respective sports?
These questions need to be answered and dealt with in case India has to become a sporting Nation and in order to being able to perform well in International Sports Events such as the Olympics. The place where the reforming process can begin from is by replacing the Secretaries or the Presidents of the various organizations, mostly bureaucrats and politicians, who have been holding on to their posts for years now and have made it a source of their illegitimate earnings and replacing them with sportsmen in the respective field, who having faced the situation might be well aware on the improvements that need to be brought in the functioning of these organizations.
Where there is a Bell, there is a deep deep well. Well ! Well ! Well ! Can India live without controversies? Not really, and our Indian team is no stranger to the controversies. A huge debate has followed the controversial run out appeal and its withdrawal thereafter by our generous captain M S Dhoni.
Some experts of the game argue that it was not the right thing to do on part of M S Dhoni’s. Everyone who has seen the replays knew that Bell should have been given out considering the rules of the game and considering that Bell initially ran for the run and then when Morgan stopped him from running, he simply refused to return to the crease and instead opted for moving along with Morgan towards the pavilion. After seeing the replays, my opinion was that Bell thought about going back to the crease but by then it was too late to go back, so he acted in a way which was the most convenient, just pretend as if the only thing that he knew was that Teahad been taken.
What to say about Dhoni? Such a gentleman of the game! I seriously don’t know why he would want to withdraw the appeal. Yes, one reason could be to gain the good will of the crowd and the English team, but is he there for gaining all this? One would be tempted to say that his first objective is to play the game and propel India to a victory and secondly if someone does not play within the rules of the game, then to act in a manner which will put forth the implementation of the rules.
But in this case, just because Bell did a misjudgement, Dhoni shouldn’t have acted in the manner he did, considering that senior players in the team like Dravid also looked upset during the post day news conference. The decision should not, but can have an impact on the morale of the players and in fact it did to some extent seeing the body language of the players in the third session.
I am not saying that the result would certainly have been different if Bell would have been given out then, but then cricket is a funny game and you never know what could have transpired in case he was given out. It was baffling to see some experts like our own Sourav Ganguly believing that what Dhoni did was in the spirit of the game, considering the fact that what Sourav Ganguly did by taking his shirt off was totally not in the spirit of the game.
My only question to these experts is when players do appeal frivolously knowing that a batsman is not out then does that count in the spirit of the game? And here there was no question about the spirit of the game, it was about implementing the rules of the game which were never implemented.
It is similar to saying that Sachin Tendulkar ran himself out because he thought the fielder wouldn’t throw the ball towards his end and therefore he continued running. But do you buy this argument? Having said that,the English batsmen played wonderfully well to achieve such a score.
Let us know below whether what Dhoni did was right in your opinion.
The battle for the No. 1 spot in the arena of test cricket is currently on at Trent Bridge. What a start India got with Indian pacers tearing apart the front line English batting order. If the first session was a good one for India, the second definitely belonged to India on the first day of the test match. But with some great batting shown by Stuart Broad and Graeme Swan, they managed to restore some pride for England in the third session. In spite of the 73 run partnership between the two the England team were bowled out relatively cheaply.
India started on a bad note with Abhimanyu Mukund perishing on the first ball that he faced from James Anderson. What followed was a shear act of survival shown by the two greats Rahul Dravid and V V S Laxman. As I am writing this article, the two are still battling in the swinging conditions that Trent Bridge is offering to the bowlers. A good first session can do a lot of good to the prospects of Team India winning this test match and retaining their No. 1 spot.
Will they be able to do it? Only time will tell. But as an Indian, I would certainly like to think in the affirmative 🙂
The loss toEngland at Lords recently can be considered as a wake up call for our Indian cricket team. It was not that we played very poorly, but the application and determination on the part of the players seemed to be lacking.
The inclusion of Zaheer Khan and his injury in the very first session of the test match was a severe blow. With 3 blowers left to work with forDhoni, it was always going to be hard. And it was further perpetuated by the dismal fielding performance by our side with Dravid missing a couple of chances in the slip cordon.
It was later known that Tendulkar was not match fit and the injury to Gambhir while fielding on the short leg didn’t help team India. As a result, the batting order in the second innings was in shatters.Laxman and Dravid succumbed under pressure in the 2nd innings to uncharacteristic shots with Dhoni once again continuing with his bad run with the bat. And when Harbhajan went in for that slog pull shot, the game for India was all over.
Few things that India could certainly improve upon is not to include players in the team who are not match fit. Secondly, apart from the top order, the lower order batsmen should show the grit and determination by trying to stay on the crease and provide support to a top order batsmen rather than going for a slog shot and throwing away their wicket. We saw how Broad and Prior batted superbly well for England in the 2nd innings.
All in all, not a good start for India. But India has had a history of coming back to form as the tour progresses. Hopefully, this time around Dhoni’s men would turn the table round from 2nd test onwards slated to begin from the 29th of July.
The name in itself says it all. The name is synonymous with excellence, committment, discipline, motivation, achievement, humbleness, honesty, team-spirit etc.etc.etc. I am running out of words here to describe the name and pardon me if I have forgotten few.
Though nothing needs to be said on the great man, for articles on him cannot even come close to what this great man has accomplished in his life, I am writing this article to motivate those 0.0001% guys in our country who are still upset with him for something or the other.
For those who believe that Sachin Tendulkar is a selfish player should not forget that even in his selfishness lies the good of our team. After all, if we look at the records, everytime he scores a 100, the probability of the team winning the game increases. It is quite evident from the stats about the no. of matches won by India when he was rewarded with a Man of the Match award. If this selfishness can do such great things for India, I would want him to be utterly selfish in his conduct.
So, it’s an earnest request to all those 0.0001% to atleast give some credit to the great man for what he has achieved over time and for what he has been able to do for Team India during this period.
Road to Discovery 