The Contrarian View on Sports is what this Generation is About

Television and Internet are shaping this generation is what everyone says. Many like me would add the mobile phone to that and go a step further and put it right on top. All three mediums are extremely powerful and the mobile phone is insanely viral, TV more commercial and the Internet is credible (leave Facebook in a corner) and commercial.

Coming to the point of Sports, we Indians have taken sports viewership to an entirely new level altogether. I will go sport by sport that are majorly followed and highlight my findings over the last few months on how the Contrarian view is imminent and all around us.

Football

I will start with the beautiful game which I will concede is gaining more popularity than many of us imagined over ten years ago. Indian leagues are not followed by everyone and the most popular is the Barclays Premier league. I read an article over a year ago on how the Munich crash of Manchester United and revival saw many Indians follow the legendary club. But this article is about the Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and the new Manchester City fans and how people have started following football and religiously so. I am a Manchester United fan and it obviously is a thought that where exactly were the Chelsea fans all this while. There was no noise. Their time is now. With the Double this year the Blues have garnered more fans in India than anywhere else. You have a boy in Baswangudi in Bangalore rooting for Didier Drogba from Ivory Coast. The thing is that the new generation is following other clubs because of various reasons. Many started following the Blues because of Jose Mourinho, the Special One and Liverpool because of the aura around Stevie G and the Miracle of Istanbul. It is these things that have added to the fan base of the other clubs more than anything and the generation takes pride in supporting the clubs. I pity the Arsenal fan because it hasn’t won any silverware in quite a while and the Real Madrid fans, who think they have the best line up but together it is a recipe of failure.

This is just talking about the clubs. Come to the World Cup and you see the elderly rooting for a South American nation invariably. Lionel Messi is the man half the people know and the other half are rooting because of Maradona. The latter is, simply put an arrogant Bastard and with each article I read he seems more like Chetan Bhagat crying still and yearning for more credit for the 1986 WC. In Calcutta it is unholy not to support Argentina or Brazil  but I have become an ardent England fan overtime after supporting Germany when Kahn was an enigma and Klose scored as if he were born to. Our loyalties have changed. Thoughts have and these sporting events bringing out a new audience for each and every country playing the WC. My friend Eldrich roots for smaller nations and the underdogs always sometime forgetting the superiority of others but his following is such that he will surprise you by telling who wears Jersey no. 23 in a Uruguay for that matter.
Apart from all the above there are supporters for Netherlands with Van Der Waart, Van Persie, Sjneider and the likes lined up along with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal and the amazing Iker Casillas’ lead Spain who have Torres, Xavi, Iniesta amongst others.

This World Cup will change Football in India. Brazil is no longer the only team we support. Not anymore.

The Contrarian View has easily overtaken the obvious.


Tennis

In tennis there are 2 players. RF & RN. Period.
In this case I fall in the category of the Contrarian by being a die hard Rafael Nadal fan. He is easily the most humble Spaniard you will meet even though by demeanour he looks rough and arrogant. Add to that the record on clay and his Australian Open triumph and to top it he won the Wimbledon. A lot of people will continue to respect Nadal for his game and immense connection that people find in his game. On the other hand Roger is poetry and Rafa is House Music. A lot of us have an affinity to the latter.

The elderly will speak at length about Becker, Sampras and the greatest comeback in Tennis by Agassi. They love Federer.
Murray, Roddick, Tsonga, Djokovic and the likes are in my opinion the best players in their era but with RF & RN. No game. No set. No Match.


Cricket

You have to agree here as well that there are Sachin Tendulkar fans and then there are others.

I again fall in the others Category with due respect to SRT. I have found immense respect for Sourav Ganguly for he is a Southpaw and the best strategist of the game in recent times. There are people who follow South Africa and not India here. It is not shocking even though South African were worst hit during the match fixing scandal as public memory is short. Everyone forgot Azhar even though the man ended his test career on 99 Tests with a score of 199 as his best. I felt for him as he was the victim when the dirt was all around. People felt more Ajay Jadeja as he is more affable and his playing style made him the Sandeep Patil of our generation. Incidentally even when Sachin mesmerised us in 1998 at Sharjah it was Azhar’s captaincy and Jadeja who used to catch my attention. No one can forget how they bailed us out in Cuttack when we were 27-3 against the then strong Zimbabweans at Cuttack scripting together a partnership of 275, the highest ODI partnership of that time.

Then you go a little ahead and you will find fans for players like Shaun Pollock, Steve Waugh & Jacques Kallis amongst others all at the top of their game in early 2000’s. The elder Waugh became God when Gibbs dropped his catch and the World Cup in England. Come to think of that WC and Lance Klusener became the hero of Indians while Jonty Rhodes showed the world how to field. At all times SRT continued to perform well but never like the 1998 Coca Cola Cup and CB Series in 2008.

Late 2000’s – The world found entertaining cricket in the likes of Sehwags, Dhonis, Morkels & Pathans. The T20 WC triumph changed our outlook on the shorter version and then it caught us like a disease. We found heroes in stars like Kieron Pollard, Yuvraj Singh etc when the game needed stronger technique. In my opinion Rohit Sharma is currently the player for the future.

Like mentioned above in anecdotes and examples alike we found solace in other players while one group kept crusading for Sachin Tendulkar. My arguement is he never scored when needed with the exception of the CB Series in 2008 and Sharjah 1998 and kept scoring on will at ease with class all the time. Also my criticism if any or only commentary if you might say was ended when he scored the 200 in ODI’s. But as a fan who looks at the game for a lot of years, Sachin Tendulkar always remained the lit-up Moon of our cricket when stars shone and got covered by the clouds of our judgement.

Sachin easily outshone everyone. If Roddick was the worst hit in Tennis – Rahul Dravid was battered in Cricket. I have not seen many talk passionately about Dravid, Kumble & Laxman. I will continue to however. Their contribution to world cricket is very very significant.

Inference

What all the above has done?

Healthy debates running in every hostel, pg, bar, house, adda, Facebook & Twitter. Cricket no longer remains the centre and Football & Tennis form the Contrarian along with F1. Football truly with EPL, Champions League, La Liga and now the WC and Tennis with the Grand Slams and Sania Mirza because she gets mileage out of TOI as if she owned it.

And since I love banter and all this happening around me.

I’m loving it

P.S – I haven’t added anything on Formula One as I do not watch the sport as much but if anyone has a piece to add to this post is most welcome.