Opinion It’s not just cricket — Asian Games show India’s new sporting superstars
Hangzhou has shown that there are more engaging sporting storylines for India than cricket’s personality cults and franchise frictions
Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy celebrate after winning the final of the Men's Doubles badminton match against Korea's Choi Solgyu and Kim Wonho at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou. (PTI) 
The juxtaposition was too obvious to ignore. The empty seats at Ahmedabad for the World Cup opener between England and New Zealand had the Indians making excuses about it being on a working day. Two days later, Indian shuttler Satwiksairaj Rankireddy threw his racquet into the brimming Hangzhou stands where neutral Chinese spectators scrambled to catch it after he won the Asian Games gold medal, beating Koreans.
Foreign cricketers accustomed to ceaseless adoration and full IPL stands are about to find out that Indians might no longer be as emotionally invested in non-India ODI matches as even 12 years ago, when the Subcontinent last hosted the Cup. Or, to find out that India’s affection for cricket — taken for granted all these years — might be diverted to other sports spotlighted by the Asiad that happened to roll to a close just before the World Cup fetched up.
In Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, in Neeraj Chopra and Kishore Jena, in Sift Kaur and Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee or in Ancy Sojan, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Aditi Gopichand, Indians are discovering athletes across sports, whose struggles and efforts to succeed make compelling viewing.
In a world where OTT entertainment has disrupted the notions of one nation, one programming, and fragmented the sporting fan base even more, the most common excuse reeled out after Ahmedabad’s empty seats was what the non-cricketing world has been wondering forever — why does an entire country waste entire days, or seven hours at least, to watch one long match.
There simply are more engaging sporting storylines out there in Olympic sport than what this team with the tiresome Rohit-Virat intrigue, social-media toxicity surrounding every selection and IPL rivalries, offers. Chatter on Olympic disciplines is about camaraderie, and nation-unifying moments; the national cricket team, sadly, is riven by cult personalities and franchise frictions. The bizarre hate directed towards KL Rahul, singling him out after every inning, didn’t make cricket very endearing in the lead-up.
Chopra standing up for Jena who was wrongly fouled by officials, steering the Odisha newbie through the whole journey to silver, while duelling him to win gold himself with 88.88m lit up the javelin competition for Indians. In a fiercely individual sport with his Olympic champ reputation to guard, Chopra still competed like a team-mate and took Jena along for a memorable 1-2 on the podium. India’s 4×400 relay team of Muhammad Anas, Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Ajmal and Rajesh Ramesh held the nation’s attention, hoping for another sub-three minute mark like the World Championships and a happy gold.
Every arrow sequence of 10s and 9s in archery team events was a crest and trough of emotion, and you couldn’t peel your eyes away from the Indian Eight in rowing and the men’s badminton team and slumped in disappointment when they were second-bested by China’s all marauding force. It wasn’t about always winning gold and hence it might not be solely about Rohit Sharma lifting the World Cup — a Rohit-Virat partnership in a united team is what India would love to see cricket throw up.
It is more about the whole of India living those moments of sinewy effort with the athletes, getting behind a united team, and feeling their glumness and glee no matter what the result. The nation’s moods swung along ODI cricket scores once upon a time in the 1990s when cricket wasn’t even winning much. Now, the whole of India rages when Jyothi Yarraji is unfairly pulled aside for a false start, when Chopra’s first throw disappears into a void of Chinese incompetence or the boxers are handed eye-popping unfair decisions. Millions were glued to screens as Abhay Singh came from 8-10 matchball down, to pip Pakistan to the squash team for gold.
Indian hockey has had to prop up its basic benchmarks — nothing less than an Asiad gold — and Indian kabaddi is tasked with beating Iran and questioned on its sit-in protest, as the country demands top standards of behaviour.
There is exhilaration in the air when Parul Chaudhary comes from the left lane with long strides to go past the Japanese leader over the last 50m in the 5000m race. Or, when HS Prannoy endures a bad back, saving two match points, to beat Malaysian Lee Zii Jia for a precious bronze to dissolve into a tearful Gopichand’s hug. There is genuine pride and joyous disbelief when Ayhika and Sutirtha defeat the Chinese at TT to briefly silence a stadium.
And a quiet, fingers-crossed acknowledgement that India’s teenaged and early 20s shooters are hot on Chinese heels, stealing away some precision golds. With her infectious energy, Sojan takes the whole country along to win silver, but it is the sight of her thumping Shaili Singh’s back in encouragement before the youngster takes off on that lonely, individual leap that feels like a team effort.
The hard-to-impress Chinese crowd, cold and hostile even, was finally won over by the exuberance and superior skills of Rankireddy and Shetty as India won its first Asiad gold in shuttle. They applauded the dancing duo, and jumped for the flung racquets. This is 14 years after Rankireddy’s father R Kasi Viswanath had been in Hyderabad’s stands for the 2009 World Championships and leapt the highest to catch Chinese doubles legend Fu Haifeng’s racquet after a World title.
India’s team, doubles and javelin golds where one Indian hauled up another’s performance, towards excellence, were precious memories of these Asian Games. Indians are suckers for a Lee-Hesh chest-bump, and sport’s enduring memories are sniffly sentimental moments, not stats about medals.
The national cricket team will have to do more than just win the World Cup if they want to stake a claim on India’s hearts. For they aren’t the only Indian team in town now, monopolising the country’s affection.
shivani.naik@expressindia.com
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