BackThe other sports
From the fluid magic of the All Blacks to the rough and tumble of kabbadiwhat attracts us to a sport for the first time?
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This is the first of what is to be a column on sports “other than cricket and football". Now while cricket and football (okay, European football) compete for the coolness stakes among India’s upwardly mobile, it’s in these “other sports" that our athletes must win their medals and tackle our quadrennial bout of “national-esteem anxiety". Enough sniping though—and the good news is we’re not getting started on hockey yet.
As sports nuts, we usually play some sport in our youth, and usually play it badly before real life takes over. If those sports go “global" and get rich, we follow them on television. Even if they slide into anonymity and national irrelevance, we remain absent-mindedly attached. But what in an older life attracts us to sports that we know nothing of, that we may never have encountered? What creates a neutral, distant fan?
I don’t mean football and tennis. We’ve had Wimbledon finals live on TV since 1980 and the football world cup from 1982. We’ve read bits and pieces about Formula One from the Niki Lauda-Nelson Piquet days. MotoGP is sighted on the roads of every Indian town. Every four years, everyone becomes a fan of gymnastics and diving. But what about a sport largely unseen in our world, or one that we didn’t read about in the papers or heard on the news? What about it attracts us?
Before arriving at any conclusions about what draws us to “other" sports, it must be said that the primary engine driver in creating the first-timer fan is television.
This is my tourist fan story. Rugby (union) first arrived on Indian TV sets through the 1995 World Cup. Until then, I vaguely knew they played it somewhere in Kolkata and that New Zealand was world No.1 and had seen the odd mystifying clip of the Haka show up on The World This Week.
What live pictures from that 1995 World Cup turned up, however, was the fluid magic and compelling force of the All Blacks. It came in the form of Jonah Lomu. In a sport where the defenders were called forwards and the forwards were called backs, Lomu was a winger. Pegasus with piledriver, speed and power, swatting aside and trampling over England defenders, scoring try after try.
A game about territory, about physicality combined with grace, touch and imagination. When compared to the rest, the All Blacks played like wizards. The dazzle of Lomu was possible because he had the guardians of the galaxy whirling around him.
So that’s what it’s all about.
Since then, for almost 20 years I’ve followed the All Blacks, learning rugby rules along the way. I read about them as much as I can, see them live on TV wherever possible, and obsessively follow every rugby world cup. I also saw the All Blacks play live once in Manchester (and indulged in crazy fan-behaviour in a spill-over media box) and own a legit T-shirt.
Over the last month, another sport—quite different from rugby, not quite so foreign— has grabbed my attention, along with that of the rest of the country. The Pro Kabaddi league turned up on TV with its bells and whistles—and boy, were they loud whistles—but that is not its point.
The only common ground rugby shares with kabaddi is that they are full-contact sports. But kabaddi is not alien, it is not complicated. The traditional rules of the game have been altered for television and a new audience. Raju Bhavsar, former Indian captain and an Arjuna Award winner, says kabaddi’s popularity “had never dwindled" and the Pro league has only broadened its demographic, with rule tweaks that have led to constant action and higher scores. An Air India employee, Bhavsar laughs at what has happened: “People from Pedder Road calling me and saying this is fantastic, I am glued."
For the first-time viewer—like the sight of Lomu’s unique combination of speed and power—what catches the eye is athleticism, dexterity, footwork and fearless tackling. Players would emerge from under a pile of bodies, check teeth to see if they were fine and nonchalantly take up positions again. Strapped jaws and bandaged heads became mere peripherals when lined up against a dizzying succession of reverse kicks and leaps and tumbles and ankle holds and trunk grabs, culminating in the triumphant “thigh-fives" (surely the most goofy marketing phrase ever invented).
First-timer fans will always be grateful for television, even with hyperventilating commentary, because of where it can take us. The more you watch, the more you learn. As the Pro Kabaddi league went by, the sport kept opening itself up. The players, their personal tics, backstories and individual skills became familiar. Maybe that’s where a sport grabs its neutral fan: when it becomes louder than the noise around it.
Now I haven’t quite worked out yet why I’d rather not watch boxing or mixed martial arts because I’ve been a bit preoccupied. Pro Kabaddi’s just ended and this Saturday, the All Blacks play Argentina in Napier, New Zealand, live on Sony Six. Gotta go.
Sharda Ugra is senior editor at ESPNcricinfo. This will be a monthly column.
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