Sports: Pastime, adventure, occupation, essence or all?

The memories go back a long time as far as sports is concerned. The day that I got a brand new cricket kit some 30 years ago, is still one of the best days I experienced. I remember Papa had bought me a maroon helmet, the colour that West Indies players don in Test cricket. It was a prized possession of mine and I used to think of myself as the right-handed Brian Lara when I took stance. It is another matter that I was an ordinary batter and bowled slightly better.

The emotions, however, which are associated to sports are immense for any child. For me personally, they take me back to a time where I managed to derive joy out of little things in life.

Joy is that one pristine feeling that sports brings in life, whether Kabaddi, Kho Kho, Cricket, Hockey or Chess. The emotions, skills, temperament that you develop while playing these sports in your childhood help you deal with professional and some personal problems ably in future life.

Sports is the essence of life

Bracketing sports as pastime, adventure or occupation is difficult to say, in the very least. It surely is the essence of our lives whether we play it, observe it or dream about it.

Society has always admired people who earn their livelihood, respect, love and goodwill through conscientious efforts. People who have done well in sports at any level also need to be appreciated for their just efforts when they put their heart and soul for achieving great goals in life.

In essence, sports provides a means to a better life and this should be the mantra for any aspiring professional sportsperson. By providing an impetus to their life, they help people associated with them to also see a better world. The sports managers must also remember this aspect while charting out their careers.

Aspirations when combined with dedication achieve better results

The above mantra may be assumed to be the guiding principle for sports managers. If they are able to inculcate this value into their proteges, wards or team members then they are sure to achieve a sense of job satisfaction combined with organisational and overall growth. In a team sport, of course, the value of achieving victories also assumes importance. The sports managers could learn in this aspect from team captains and their insights or experiences in these matters.

In the times that we are living in, the importance of proper healthcare has also assumed importance. The sports managers’ focus on players’ health is more than what it used to be in the past.

The Good Samaritan fans

Sports is a field which could really help the people who play or watch it overcome their fears. While no one could forget the Sri Lankan cricket fan Percy Abhayasekhara and how he waved the Sri Lankan flag at the venues there whenever his team plays a match there, no one could also forget the Indian cricket fan Sudhir Chaudhary who paints his face with the Indian flag and keeps on waving the flag through the day at venues where India plays a Test match.

Of course, the old-timers talk fondly of Percy and the new generation is in awe of Sudhir. Victories achieved by teams mean the most for such fans and tears in their eyes are the greatest earning that any sincere observer of the game can think of achieving. The performances of players and the exacting stiffness of sports managers may be important but they are not the end all and be all of professional sport. The value that such committed fans bring to the table are remarkably noteworthy and appreciable.

The essence of sports is really beyond my limited knowledge to be explained in more comprehensible terms and I hope people of the future generation would remember the values, sacrifices and dedication that sports followers also brought to the table apart from sportspersons and sports managers. Their hearts were not only immensely invested but their labour of love, blood and toil in aspiring for the best for their idols also spoke and will continue to speak volumes.

Cricket minus game dynamics = pure joy

Beyond the realm of the apparent lies the world of happiness and solace. The moment I saw that little angel on the Karnail Singh Stadium during the Group A Ranji Trophy 2018-19 game between Vidarbha and Railways, I felt a certain sense of elation that any soul wanting and longing eternal joy would have.

The serene settings of the Karnail Singh Stadium amidst the ruins and newness of New Delhi are as oxymoronic as literary liberty would allow it to be, yet it has an old world charm which lends any game of cricket the vital coat of authenticity that it commands at times. The third session of the first day of the group game was on between the aforementioned sides. Railways pacer Manjeet Singh and off-spinner Madhur Khatri were operating in tandem and were trying their level best to dislodge a potentially formidable partnership between the Vidarbha duo of Akshay Wadkar and Mohit Kale. The two of them had stitched together a worthwhile contribution of around 90 runs after a minor collapse had struck their team in the earlier session where they had lost three wickets for 15 runs within a matter of 7.2 overs as Vidarbha slid from 89/1 to 104/4.

The cricket was mildly intense and the terrain quite old-worldly as discussed above in terms of charm - a handful of spectators thrown around with officials, groundstaff and players all going about their business with a lazy slumber which one would expect is easily induced on a winter afternoon in Delhi.

Untouched and unaffected by all these pretensions or seriousness of an inflated sense of self-importance that cricket could very easily induce, a little angel in the form of a boy of around 5-6 years of age emerged out of the Athletics enclosure of the stadium on to the outer cricketing turf of the stadium. There was a group of mynahs which were going about having fun on the grass and to my wondrous surprise, our little angel was playing the chidiyabaaz to the flock, shooing them away. Absolute joys of childhood! Lo and behold! And yet before you could say these words, our angel disappeared as soon as he had emerged leaving behind a joyous memory one could cherish for ages. The best things in life come for free afterall and yes cricket was freed from its trappings that day for me in a sense, reminding me of my own co-operative ground and its sparrows.