As Santhosh told in India there are a lot of home matches in Cricket like Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Irani Trophy etc where as for hockey there is only federation cup and for football Federation cup as well as Santhosh Trophy.Since all these have to be given equal priority why cricket has this much importance? So from authority side itself there is some inclination towards cricket. I think other sports will improve only when the cricketer's son or Pawar's son or Kalmadi's son get selection to Indian football or Hockey team.

Yes.. there are maximum number of home matches and international matches in cricket. We are focussing more on cricket and expect the best from the cricketers. The people at large are not much bothered about other sportsmen. Also, taking into consideration the large Indian population, one sport dominating the others is not appreciated.

Does anyone hear about a tennis fan or badminton fan? But everybody hears that he/she is a fan of a particular cricketer. The number of cricket stadiums in city are increasing compared to other sportsgrounds. The popularity of cricket has indeed hampered other sports.

Gotham Balaji wrote:
[quote]@ Karthik
You are right it has been appreciated well and it is out in newspapers and news channels . But I have a question . How many people the path that lead to where she stands now , No 3 ?

. News -Saina won back-to-back titles, India Open Grand Prix and the Singapore Open Super Series in the last two weeks and jumped 3 spots from no 6 to no 3.

Im not gonna pretend I knew she won both the titles and that is why she is up here now . Where did the media go when she won the above said two titles ? I guess, they were busy finding out if Yuvraj is crying in his mothers lap or fathers lap for excluding him from the team . I sure didn't see any news about it or any whole page dedicated to her achievements .[/quote]

@Gotham Balaji ,

I saw news channels dedicating some time to Saina even at that time especially the regional news channels.

"In European countries hockey players don't get enough financial support as ours get. They don't have hockey as their job. Most of them are working as doctors, plumbers etc. yet they perform better than us because they are passionate about playing their sport".

If tomorrow i say to my parents that i will go to hockey camp. The first question to come to mind is whats the money will he get. So this is the typical mentality of ours. The first thing to come to mind is the money.

@Karthik
Dude I didn't ask you whether you watched it even though I addressed it to your comments , I was talking in general terms . I was talking about the common population and the majority of them would'nt have probably seen it . And all this coverage is probably because she is among the top 3 which is so blody huge where as everybody would know even if india plays a match against Afghanistan and wins and the man of the match gets a half page dedicated to him .

Yes.. Gautham, You are right.. there are many awards for cricket and even if an Indian cricketer wins one of the awards, he is treated like a hero for a long time.

While Other sports, that is not the case.

In India Cricket is rocking all youngster binded with cricket fever not other game fever. Other reason is in other game hero not comparable with cricket Hero.

Public known him as a simple person but if anyone do special like Vijendra from boxing he done special then public remember him also.

So to improve other game we need more heros in all game.

So, i think we have come to an end of our group discussion,

“CRITICS COME AND CRITICS GO BUT THE GAME STAYS ON”.
Always remember it is not the players but the game that matters.In india cricket is a passion so we see a lot of critics too.Other games in india are coming up but blaming cricket wont help. What helped cricket is the administrators even though they are not the best they are smart enough take advantage of the wins and market cricket whereas in other games like football and hockey for example the administrators suck big-time. Even after India won the Nehru cup in football during presentation more importance was given to the administrators and politicians involved the players were completely sidelined and even now do we see anything done by the football association to market the sport. That is what has been happening for a longtime now. The players are sidelined in other sports whereas cricket has always taken advantage of a player's popularity to market the port rather than crying about how cricket has taken over the nation and spoilt other sport's chances they should concentrate on learning from the administrators as to how a sport is to be marketed and also that corruption and infighting in football and hockey is the main reason behind these sports not coming up.
In my opinion
Cricket is a useless game,
It is hyped by its fame,
It provides an elevated name,
Itsn't pride Its a shame.

But still I love cricket. Thanks for creating a wonderful topic for this week group discussion.

Hello,

Well it has been a good discussion and now its time to know who is the winner. So enough of discussion and by today evening I will announce the results.

Regards,
Karthik.

Yes you are right friend now its time to wait for winner because time period expired to continue group discussion.