Are India's cricketers over paid ?
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 21 2011 -
Of course they are. Most players representing the country in various formats of the game are millionaires. Do they all deserve their financial status ?
Er, mm, you could say that they do, after all they are the cup that cheers in a billion strong population which craves for recognition in sports, but to which they are not naturally tuned to.
Does the present national team possess the talent and skill to deserve the tag of World number 1 ? Yes it does.
The huge amount spent on creating the infrastructure and imparting the technical know how of the game has paid off. In short, cricket in India is a success story. You never had it so good.
There is an acid test for India coming up. It is going to be locked in a test and one day series in England versus a rejuvenated and an immensely talented English side. It is not going to be a cake walk.
As much as the Indian think tank has considered, analysed and devised methods to win, the English side too has done its homework, and the contest promises to be a gripping one. One has to wait for the action in the field to unwrap. Let team India succeed, and succeed well.
There are a few things to be learnt from the success story of cricket in India. The obvious one being, provided you have large amounts of money to invest, you can succeed in creating sports heroes even in a population which is naturally adverse to sports, particularly contact sports.
This leads us to the obvious question, if a trifling of the amount spent on cricket in India is earmarked for all sport disciplines in Manipur what will be the outcome where the entire population dotes sports and its sports persons ? Here you have to applaud the Indian government.
It has never made an exception to seriously care for any sport discipline. The BCCI one of the richest sports authorities in the world has built its financial empire depending on astute businessmen who saw the game for its real financial worth.
The central government had little to do with its fairy tale success. As said, true to its character, it has ignored due attention to all sport disciplines.
Our story however deals with Manipur. Our sports persons have brought us fame and glory, and we as a people have a niche for sports in our cultural heritage. Perhaps in this part of Asia, we are the only society to have a god for sports, Lord Marjing.
And yet we suffer a huge paucity of funds which ought to be invested in sports. Can we expect adequate aid from the centre ? Nope. And should we crib about it ? Nope again.
Should we devise our own means to create world class sports stars. Yes, and its about time.
Our sports persons need international class coaches, they need international class infrastructure and they need lots of international exposure. For all this, a huge amount of money is required.
Therefore we need to have a huge corpus fund and so let us begin to create that fund forthright.
Let us never forget our sports stars are the mirror of our society in the international arena. When they succeed, we succeed.
May we request the indomitable Manipuri women to lead us?
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