Cash them young

The Elf-Vengsarkar Cricket Academy in Mumbai it8217;s free for the trainees and the Bournvita-Arun Lal Cricket Academy in Kolkata are easily the cream of the lot. Lal, on the other hand, runs a huge centre with over 400 children in five different age groups, and provides nutrition, coaches from the American NBA and Major League Baseball, 21 former Ranji Trophy players as coaches, a multi-gym, video facilities, and everything else John Wright has been moping for. Children need to pay Rs 250 a month to avail of these.

Outside of these, Madan Lal8217;s Academy at the Siri Fort Sports Complex, Gursharan Singh8217;s Gyan Bharti South Delhi Academy and Tarak Sinha8217;s Sonnet Club in the Capital, plus myriad coaching schemes that go on at Mumbai8217;s Shivaji Park and Kolkata8217;s Maidan are probably the most exciting.

Down South, Krishnamachari Srikkanth8217;s interactive cricket coaching CD8212;Bat Like A Master8212;might be an option for the television generation as a more logical one than sweating it out for hours, though exactly how much a child can learn from staring at the television screen will need some proving.

Moving to football, the trick here is to do well at the school-level and impress. The Tata Football Academy in Jamshedpur is easily the best, and in a sense the only 8216;real8217; football academy in the country. Dr Dinesh Upadhyay, one of TFA8217;s directors, explains: 8216;8216;Our coaches go on scouting stints whenever junior football tournaments happen in India, including the National Inter-school Subroto Cup. Outside of that, former soccer players of repute send us recommendations and we call them for trials.8217;8217;

In Delhi, the India Youth Soccer Association is the best bet. Modelled on the guidelines of the Football Association England, the fully-sponsored IYSA admits children from schools across the Capital. It also runs a programme called Soccer Street, which involves homeless children. Similarly, in Pune, the Khare Football and Rugby Academy admits all who come to them for training, charging a blanket quarterly of Rs 500 per head.

The scene with the national game8212;hockey8212;is a stark contrast. It still suffers from bankruptcy, and depends a lot on goodwill and labour of love. An interesting story is that of the Thapar Hockey Academy in Sansarpur off-Jalandhar in Punjab. Run by Col. Balbir Singh, the JCT-sponsored set-up 8216;8216;selects and coaches about 20-30 boys every year and doesn8217;t charge them any money8217;8217;.

The most high-profile hockey academy in the country at the moment is easily the Dhanraj-Ballal Hockey Academy in Bangalore.

The other mention-worthy centres are the DAV Hockey Academy and the Chandigarh Hockey Academy under the Chandigarh Sports Council; the Sports Authority of India tie-up with Punjab National Bank at the National Stadium in the Capital; and for women, the recently-launched Mata Chanan Kaur Dhanoa Academy in Jalandhar. Former captain of the Indian women8217;s team Rajbir Kaur heads the academy, and has former men8217;s team captain Pargat Singh as its director.

Tennis is another sport that has risen in the national consciousness in recent times. The National Tennis Academy in Gurgaon is where most of the stars practice when in India, but it is not open for the public. Ergo, the better options are the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association courts in the Capital and the Modern School Barakhamba Road, where candidates are divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced classes, and need to shell-out anywhere between Rs 7,000 and Rs 16,000 on an annual basis. The other option is the Peninsula Tennis Academy. Bobby Singh, proprietor of the Academy, with a total of 27 branches in Delhi and the NCR, 8216;8216;Beginners pay Rs 1,100 a month, and advanced players pay Rs 3,500 a month. The objective is to take professional-level tennis coaching to the doorstep of everyone. And we now have around 5,000 children in our centres,8217;8217; says Singh.

Elsewhere, in Kolkata it8217;s the Jaideep Mukherjea Tennis Academy for under-12 children at the Salt Lake Stadium, which falls in the 8216;expensive8217; category. The more famous one is the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy, Bangalore for 8216;8216;gifted juniors8217;8217;. But the Krishnan Tennis Centre in Chennai, however, is a more public academy, where, according to Ramanathan Krishnan former Wimbledon semi-finalist, 8216;8216;we charge according to the paying ability of the trainee. Some even pay up to Rs 3,000.8217;8217;

One of the more common and popular sports down the years, especially for toddlers, is swimming. Clubs are spread across the country, but most of them don8217;t provide much beyond regular basic instructions. In Mumbai for example, the Andheri Sports Complex, the Otter8217;s Club and the PM Hindu Bath are the common watering holes for people, and the pools are accessible for anything between Rs 300 and Rs 500 per month. Instructors are available at all the centres, though the Olympic-size pools are used primarily to train national-level swimmers.

The competitive spirit, albeit of an indoor sort, is what drives children to take up the game of chess. Of course, a trend is that of parents who feel and who doesn8217;t? their children are more 8216;mental8217; than 8216;physical8217;, who send their children to the boards. Despite the surge of Tamil Nadu in recent times, Kolkata remains the major breeding ground. In the north, the Botvinnik Academy and the 64 Squares Chess Academy are fast catching up in popularity.