Covers the Indian sportspeople who don't get a cricket-sized share of attention — and asks why that's still true.
· 6 min read
India’s non-cricket athletes did not produce a respectable sideshow; they produced the country’s second-best Asian Games tally. If our attention disappears before their next training cycle begins, the neglect is ours—not theirs.
· 7 min read
A fourth-place finish and medals across athletics, shooting and archery show genuine breadth. If our attention vanishes until the next multi-sport event, the neglect is ours—not the athletes’.
· 6 min read
Eighty-five medals and success across disciplines deserve more than a fortnight of patriotic attention. If India wants Olympic depth, funding and coverage must follow athletes into the untelevised years between podium ceremonies.
· 6 min read
Manu Bhaker gave India one of Paris 2024’s defining stories, but the sporting system still treats non-cricket success as a temporary content genre. The real tribute is not another felicitation; it is a visible domestic season and secure pathways for the shooters coming behind her.
· 6 min read
India celebrates one athletics superstar as proof that the system works, then returns most track-and-field athletes to obscurity. Neeraj’s career should teach us to fund coaching, competition and recovery before medals make an athlete famous.
· 5 min read
A first Asian Games title in 44 years and direct Olympic qualification deserve more than a victory montage. Women’s hockey needs a stable league, regular broadcasts and investment between medals.
· 6 min read
India’s chess boom is real, but our attention economy still demands that non-cricket champions perform fame before we reward excellence. Gukesh’s achievement should change institutions, not merely produce a week of congratulatory posts.
· 6 min read
A fuller women’s calendar is welcome, but attention cannot remain conditional on a final, a viral innings or proximity to the men’s team. If BCCI wants a durable women’s game, it must build recognisable competitions, dependable broadcasts and a pathway that supporters can follow all year.
· 6 min read
The hockey, wrestling, sailing and combat-sport medals were not side dishes to cricket gold. If broadcasters and sponsors treated non-cricket athletes as continuing stories rather than fortnightly curiosities, audiences would follow.
· 6 min read
A broad medal haul can conceal a shortage of champions. India should celebrate athletes who reached the podium in Nagoya while asking why so many promising programmes still struggle to turn finalists into winners.
· 6 min read
Indian shooting keeps producing champions, yet we notice many of them only during medal ceremonies. Neeru Dhanda’s Asian Games success should push federations, broadcasters and sponsors toward year-round storytelling.
· 6 min read
Qualifying ambition means little without a durable domestic league, paid contracts and routine match access. I’m tired of women footballers being praised for resilience when the system should be judged for requiring so much of it.
· 7 min read
The Asian Games triumph and Olympic qualification deserve celebration, but the more revealing test begins after the podium photographs. Indian sport repeatedly turns women into national icons for a weekend and leaves their domestic ecosystem invisible by Monday.
· 5 min read
Neeraj Chopra crossing 90 metres was a personal milestone, not proof that Indian athletics has been fixed. We celebrate exceptional athletes as national miracles while leaving the system that should multiply them painfully ordinary.
· 6 min read
We restrict squads in the name of medal efficiency, then lament our shallow bench when pressure arrives. Athletes outside cricket need competitive exposure before they become podium guarantees, not congratulations after the fact.
· 7 min read
A crowded medal day in Nagoya should force us to notice the athletes who train without cricket’s money, mythology or margin for failure. I’m tired of treating India’s non-cricket champions as inspirational visitors in their own sporting culture.
· 8 min read
India’s non-cricket athletes do not need a fortnight of patriotic enthusiasm followed by silence. They need a sports culture that treats the years between medal ceremonies as the real event.
