First of all let us forget the glory of being Olympic Gold medalist.That is a matter of past and for the last three decades India have never been even in a close counter to retain that glory again.But, first time missing the berth for Olympic deserves a big concern and needs to be analyzed seriously.
As an ordinary Indian I see hockey and hockey players in only newspapers.First time I heard the word "hockey" in my classroom, where it was introduced as our national sport. I have never seen even my district hockey team, though got to know about state team through media.This shows the dearth of grassroot players in selection process.So, is it lack of interest of indian youth in this insipid game or the whole governing body is to be blamed?One of the reasons for lack of interest may be given as the absence of lucrative careers in comparison to other sports and hence youths are distracted from hockey.But now let us see it from a child's point of view.Why children in streets are found playing cricket rather than hockey.A child can't be motivated by money.So what inspired him to go for cricket? Is it the easiness of availability of cricket accessories (a whole group needs a bat and a ball only to conduct a cricket match while in hockey every player must have a hockey stick) over hockey? had this been the answer, football would have been the most popular game among children.One answer may be the popularity of cricket in society and that seems to be the best answer, because a child would like to be involved in a game which he finds being played around him, which he sees everywhere,be it TV or in newspaper, which his friends talk about. But, once again another question arises- who did make cricket popular but not hockey or football? Media. Media may be one the suitable answers.I can recall all my childhood memories where we had a long chat with my friends about cricket and cricket matches.We used to spend several leisure hours talking about the different strokes shown in last night match on TV, even most of us had good memories to keep a bunch of records of their favorite players.We were even regular subscribers of few magazines totally dedicated to cricket.I never thought of hockey at those moments.Now I have grown up, and due to professional responsibilities I don't find time to play again, I never thought cricket as my career. I know though I don't contribute even a bit to present Indian Cricket team as well as any other sports team, I was an integral part of that childish grass-movement, which didn't let create any dearth of grassroot players to choose the best players among us.But I think if one can find the best honest reason why he went for cricket in his childhood but not for hockey, it can definitely serve the best solution for our current hockey scenario.