If Tiger Woods is sporting a Nike club, Mahendra Singh Dhoni munching lays and Mathew Hayden slurping Cloud 9.What is the first question that would come to your mind?..Why can’t I be sipping Cloud 9 or swinging those Nike golf clubs???Isn’t it??This is exactly what endorsements do.

India is a developing country. Focus on the word developing as India is not yet developed. Ironically, India is a country which is, on one hand struggling with the problem of poverty since the time of independence while on the other hand is spending millions on the Commonwealth Games! Forty percent of India’s population is below the poverty line which clearly indicates...

Cricket in India is nothing short of a religion. Especially after the recent success that the team has garnered, it is bound to be elevated to such a level. Yet as they say, there is always a positive and negative effect of everything. We have seen the positive, the negative is that it over-shadows other sports by its presence, our national game hockey, too is not an...

The Sports sector in India represents a vast chunk of under utilized talent. India is a huge country and our past clearly shows presence of immense talent lying in all parts of the country. In the past we have produced brilliant sportsmen that the world remembers till today,

If the age old “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, is to be believed, then there are many dull boys in India. We may pride ourselves in some super successes of our overnight heroes and glorify their rags to riches stories but the fact remains that the condition of sports in India is deplorable.

“Yeh hai Yangistaan Meri Jaan!”- and Mahendra Singh Dhoni is now seen commanding more on Pepsi and Reebok television commercials than shaping up on field, coming up more as an amateur actor and experimenting with new looks than training and practicing with the coach.

Let me first wonder why sports competitions/championships are held? Are they all held just to gain money? Immediately we would sway our head with a gesture saying no. But, what really is happening?

It takes time to develop calibre and character. It takes even longer to nurture the contours of culture whether it be the work culture or sports culture. If the Prime Minister of India laments the lack of sports culture in India and wedges the sports person to develop a strong winner’s instinct, he merely expresses the voices of millions.

The two sports that have dominated the minds of Indians for more than a century are Cricket and Hockey. Unfortunately, the success that cricket was able to sustain in terms of popularity in the Indian sports scenario could not be replicated by hockey

Excitement has reached to a feverish pitch with the defending champion India making it into the Super Eights in the T20 World Cup in England. However, the team is under a cloud for the bizarre behaviour of a few players. Recently, Indian

Cricket! Cricket! Cricket! Cricket has become the religion of India and the national anthem of the country, so much so that the word “sports” has become synonymous with cricket. Cricket runs as the life flowing blood through the veins of

Everybody loves a good underdog story. Deep down, all of us want to believe that the lovable nerds will win the championship, the awkward girl with the thick braces will turn out to be a princess, and the angry young man with

Ask this question to any Indian- What is the national sport of India? What would most people reply? The answer would be unanimous- Cricket. Yes, this happens in a country where Hockey is the national sport. What about cricket then

“Why they only write about Cricket?” This simple question asked by a national medal winner tells the indifference with which ‘sports other than Cricket’ are dealt with. In India, Cricket is a religion. A young toddler becomes

The IPL T-20 series started in 2008 with a bang , with millions of dollars being spent on the game of cricket made possible by the fusion of two of India’s best selling brands: Cricket and Bollywood. The IPL formula was a sure winner. Everything about the series was larger than life, it was a grand extravaganza. The team managements put every effort to reach out to...

Cricket has become one of the most exciting games in the world today. The following of cricket, especially in the Indian sub continent is immense, where the players hold the stature of demigods. It is the fastest growing religion in India

The success of IPL has greatly churned the socio-economic-politics of major cricketing boards around the world including Australia’s, Pakistan’s and smaller ones like WICB and NZCB either in formulating their own leagues in parallel with IPL model-where cross-national cricketing squads fight for a coherent goal, as in the case of ECB’s forthcoming T20...

1920’s and 1960’s: India bags eight gold, one silver, two bronze medals in eighteen successive appearances in the Olympics. Six of the eight gold medals came in consecutive appearances. 2008: India fails to even qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

I have never been much of a cricket fan. Actually, I don’t ever recall watching an entire cricket match from start to finish. Although that might be due to the fact that I don’t even have a rudimentary working knowledge of anything

And as the ball hit the boundary, a huge uproar awakened and people surged into the grounds of the lords with the Indian tricolor being waved gallantly…India had just won the 1983 cricket world championships. The sport which anyone

India is a huge country with a massive population. Our population is a resource for the nation. A country with the second largest population has won less Olympic gold medals than the United States swimmer, Michael Phelps, has won

India- a country stretched to the seams by its burgeoning youth population. We are considered the Sunshine economy; we are called an almost developed nation and are touted to be one of the future superpowers of the world. Yet this seemingly strong and well-built country provides a pretty dismal training for the future to its teaming youth, at least in terms of education.

Adolf Hitler was so impressed, that he had wanted to buy one of the hockey sticks which he had used in one of his Olympic escapades, yet, when Dhyan Chand, the wizard of hockey, died in 1979; he was in economic distress, a fact that M.S Gill had pointed out when he was nominated the Minister for Sports.

It has been a roller coaster ride for Indian sports in the year 2008, after having won so many laurels. Abhinav Bindra won the country’s first-ever individual Olympics Games gold medal. Then Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar’s bronze medal at Beijing also gave the country a lot of joy, as did Saina Nehwal, Jeev Milkha Singh and Viswanathan Anand’s performances.

India is the land of the Vedas, which has defined almost every aspect of human lifestyle. Back then, Bharatvarsha was ruled by the powerful men. The power of man was his strength due to his Sena (army), which, in turn, was made by a people possessing mastery over the use of weapons. It was this aptitude which led to competition among men, and gave birth to the early...

Some months back, a certain Monica Devi missed out on the Olympics because the Indian Olympic Association withdrew her name after she tested positive during a drugs test. When she asked for another test, it was found that she was, in fact, innocent

A wide range of sports and games are played in India. Undoubtedly, Indian sports have made a remarkable contribution at the international level, most importantly cricket, which has left such an impact on the minds of people that they

It is now nearly three months since the Olympics ended, the “Best” Olympics our country ever had. While the country rejoiced, many hoped this was a sign of improvement we could expect from the future editions of the Games. But, have we so far even moved an inch forward from where we were pre-Olympics? Or are we going to wait for London 2012 to almost come upon us

Once, I had been trying to find information on the some of the most memorable moments from many of the sports that we play – and I could not find it. So I thought, why not make the effort myself? So here I am, listing some of the memorable events from tennis. The moments are in no particular order.

Indian badminton sensation Saina Nehwal went on to win the Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold Open badminton tournament by beating Cheah Li Ya Lydia of Malaysia clinching her second Grand Prix tournament win

The news for a past few days has had the ‘Breaking News’ element filled with reports of the Indian Contingent bagging three individual medals at the Beijing Olympics. Kudos to the team and the winners! For me, what has added to the prevailing joy is the fact that, for a change, cricket was not making much news, even though an Indian–Sri Lanka series has been on...

Should we start believing in miracles now? Let’s Mr. Kalmadi’s assurance to the Indian contingent, and the sport lovers of India, to not expect any miracles in China. And then let’s look at the sheer finesse with which Abhinav Bindra has proved him wrong! This gold medal is a miracle because despite our politicians’ apathy, we have a winner.

“You will be nearer to heaven through football than through the study of the Gita” remarked Swami Vivekananda. By this he meant that by developing our body and mind, we would be fit to study and understand the meaning of the Gita.

Sports Management in India is an emerging field, and a lot of professionals are associating themselves with it. Earlier, sports personalities were not seen as ‘stars’, but in today’s times, players like MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, make fortunes off the field. In such a scenario, where sports is not merely about scoring runs, or winning tournaments, sports management...

According to Suresh Kalmadi, the chief of India’s Olympic Association – a medal at the Beijing Games for India would be a “miracle”. Well, most of us aren’t really expecting anything beyond our performances in the previous Olympic games. However, when the chief of the organization that represents the country at the Olympics makes such a statement a couple...

India has achieved many milestones in the field of sports and is recognised as one of the upcoming nations in the international sphere. The country has secured a distinct position in world championships with many of its sportspersons displaying spectacular performances.

For sometime now, cricket has become a battle of anthems, celebrity-owners, and, promotional videos. Reams of paper have been dedicated to seeing which Bollywood actor has been roped in by which team, which singer is behind which anthem and who is choreographing whose promotional jig!

Twenty four years ago, Team India brought pride to an entire nation when it lifted the prestigious Cricket World Cup. Thenceforth, sponsors began to queue, endorsers struggled to cash in and the ball was rolling. Steadily, as the sport transformed into a religion and its players into celebrities, all others began to asphyxiate. In spite of every effort, the honour of...