Sport is an indicator of the state of nation , it reflects the character of nation and represents the aspiration of its people , that is the reason why lot of importance is placed of sporting victories . Also the reason why people follow their national team with great fervor and corporate houses invest so much money in these events and in sport-stars.
60 odd years ago 2 nations were created at the end of colonial rule and both have taken their own unique route . Cricket field is very good indicator of the way India and Pakistan have fared and performed in the world stage. This should also answer the question of skeptics as to why is the nation so much obsessed with this game called cricket !
Indian cricket team traditionally was always good on paper with stylish players and spin wizards , but never quite managed to translate that potential into victories in world stage and were perfect representation of an under performing nation growing at 'Hindu rate of growth' whose economy stagnated with corruption , excessive protectionism and regulations , while other smaller 'Asian Tiger' countries leaped ahead in the first five decades of self rule.
Pakistan was also going through similar phase as India , a nation with lot of potential but never quite managing to put it across when it mattered , just like its cricket team which could be world beaters one day , challenging any nation and fold up meekly the next day.
At the start of this decade , Indian economy slowly started 'shining' , the growth really picked up and India was recognized as an emerging power by the world over the next few years . With steady growth of more than 6% over last couple of decades , India which is now the 4th largest economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the world
At the same time the cricket team under Sourav Ganguly and later under Rahul Dravid started challenging all major powers both at home and away on consistent basis. They started managing test wins in most of the major tours abroad , gradually improved that to series wins in Eng , Pak , WI , NZ and finally leading to No:1 ranking in tests with a win in T2o WC also in between ... Nation also firmly established itself in the world stage by opening up its economy resulting in a stable domestic market . The success of IPL is an example of the economic might of India , the amount of money it has been able to pour into the game and the way it has been able to attract cream of world cricket is sign of strength of its local economy and the belief of all investors in the potential for growth in the country.
For Pakistan whose team was the dangerous floater of 80s and 90s , the next decade was not so memorable as they could not match their neighbor in consistency, despite occasional dominant performances like T20 WC win last year it has been more of lows than highs.
Similarly the country which allied with US in war on terror has been believed by many to be running with the hare and hunting with hounds. There has been a gradual destabilization as the extremist forces have started making in roads and govt struggling to maintain stability and peace.
As the cricket team changed captain after captain - they have recently named their 7th captain in last 3 years - nation also plunged through leadership crisis with Democracy being overthrown by dictatorship which was also collapsed leaving the nation without effective leadership as extremist forces continued to attack and the country getting world wide attention for trouble within . As the country is battling to overcome infighting , Pak team is also going through similar phase with senior players being removed/banned and several players reprimanded for damaging team discipline , with players coming in and going out constantly
In contrast India has had relatively stable rule with a functioning democracy and governments getting re-elected and Test team had captains enjoying long runs at helm.
Quick look at numbers confirms the same :
Indian test team had a success rate of 20% before 2000 and in the next decade(post 2000) it has improved to 35 % . The Win/Loss ratio was 0.65 earlier and it has improved almost 100% to 1.22 in the last decade.
For Pakistan team had fared better than India in previous decades , success rate was at 27% earlier had only marginally improved to 29% in the last decade. Win/Loss ratio has actually dropped by around 50% for them, with the drop being more in the last few years. For Pakistan economy which was model economy initially with its high growth rate in the first few decades , the last few years have mirrored the fortunes of their team with Balance of payment crisis and GDP growth rate dipping in the last few years.
Note : Economy stats pulled from wiki and cricket stats pulled from cricinfo - rough calculations only ; Cricket - Only test records considered in order to measure last 60 years performance. Results against Bangladesh and Zim have been omitted while preparing this statistics as 1) They were not playing test cricket that much before last decade 2) I don't personally believe they are Test class teams !
6 comments:
interesting correlation... it is rather puzzling why Pakistan was not able to strengthen democracy and move like we have. Not that India is bereft of problems or that we are a perfect equal democracy.. We still have some way to plod..
I believe there is a strong co-relation between economic/military might and sporting success ... olympic games medal tally is a perfect example
I present two examples to underline my point : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics_medal_table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics_medal_table
Weren't both those olympics held in the countries that topped them? A lot of home support I would imagine.
I guess the correlation that you talk about is not unusual though. You need economy to support sporting success. Parents can't afford to send kids to sports training if they don't earn enough to sustain bare necessities. So India's middle class, from where most of the sporting heroes have emerged (except Ganguly?), has had a good swing in its fortunes in the last 20 years and hence we see more achievements in the sporting world. It could extend to other sports too - Saina Nehwal, the bunch of talent in shooting etc.
Even Paul cannot yet predict when will we make it to the FIFA WC though :P
Sporting success mirroring economic trend is not a new finding. What would be interesting is to pick a sport for a nation that serves as a good flag or indicator.
You pick cricket here, 'cos for all practical reasons, it is our national sport today. And that has to do with us winning the 1983 WC. But, it was once hockey. When we shone in the Olympics. I think, after the 1983 WC and the 1985 win down under, we were on a high and to date that remains the highest & longest period of 'India Shining' (adjusted for inflation, of course).
But, what is interesting is the downfall of the once golden sport, hockey. The greater the Indian economy rises, the worse we seem to perform in that sport. Which ties me back to Vineeth's point of 'where does the money lie?'. And money obviously seems to lie where performance is. Cricket.
This has created a positive (and hence, a negative) feedback loop. In superstar Rajni's words, the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer.
Sporting infrastructure (like in Aus & USA) is surely a factor, a major factor and that has obviously got a lot to do with the economic maturity, not necessarily stability, but maturity. And this obviously, apart from govt. benevolence, derives from basic ROI justifications.
@ vineeth ... yes these two nations quoted in example ( which was a random example ! ) were hosts .. but digging a little deeper since i had picked China ... i find that China had struggled big time in 60s and 70s .. when as a nation they were struggling , in 80s slowly they started making a mark. By 90s they were in top 10 and then top 5 this decade and eventually when world economy went bust and with China still going strong it is no suprise they topped in 2008 medals table .. it was a gradual rise , which coincides with their economic rise as well
I was just drawing patterns / plotting one sport which mirrors the nation - for us India i thought cricket fitted the best , same for Pak ... the idea occured when i heard the news of Afridi retiring yet again !!!
Hmm...The board has definitely grown richer...players playing better, can't really say (we probably just had a golden generation with sachin, dravid, kumble, vvs, sehwag and ganguly coming together), whether we can sustain that is a matter of conjecture ...
from the looks of it, we might be headed into a transition period for a while...like in the late 90s.
Pakistan too is going through a similar phase. They have the talent to pull through, but not enough vision and guidance, which is mainly because of a fractured board itself.
But yes, that's true of the country too. People are intelligent enough...just don't have the right leaders, which again is something we are headed towards!...but one consolation might be that the military is not as ambitious as across the border, and there are some fragile checks and balances that keep things in some sort of balance.
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