For last few years it has been observed that knock out cricket T-20 tournaments are in rise. The said tournaments are organized by the organizing committees to save time and money. The matches are playing in the afternoon in working days and two matches to play in weekdays & holidays. These result oriented tournaments are concluding within a short period of time. Above all people from all walks of life like to watch these matches with full cricket spirit, zeal and enthusiasm. This huge participation of people and time bound money turnover, the self interested, deceit & hoaxing people directly or indirectly are loitering all along with the tournaments. Using matting surface here in Kashmir for cricket pitch instead of turfs is also a concern for all of us. One of the major reasons that our boys are unable to compete with rest of the players outside J&K in turf pitches is using matting surface. It becomes easy for the organizers to arrange matting pitches for T-20 knock out matches to earn money in short period of time. Under these circumstances it is very difficult to identify the genuine player which will be future cricketing star of the state. We have to take immediate steps to stop this T-20 knock out tournaments which seems pure business to make money. This pattern is totally against to identify the natural talent among youngsters. Though we are proud on few players from our state played national and international level of cricket but they do not deliver upto the expectations of the people of state so far. In order to tackle the paucity of genuine young cricket players, it is need of an hour to organize league T-20 cricket tournament instead of knock out in a sound pattern. It will be much better if the government provide some financial support to the organizers for betterment and accountability. Government must take immediate measures to maintain the playgrounds and take care of turf pitches. In Srinagar city there are many grounds which can be built to a national level cricket ground with more than one cricketing turf. Necessary & proper fencing is required to make it possible to play safe cricket on multiple pitches in one particular ground.
Further, in order to promote sports like cricket we as a society have to extend our full support to promote sports, teams and organize sporting events in a big way. We can utilize sports as marketing of our products like manufacturing of cricket bats through broadcasting, advertising, social media, digital platforms and community relations. Initially, Government can take steps to make mandatory for the people to watch the game of sports like cricket by purchasing a low cost ticket on week end. The revenue so generated will be utilized to develop & construct fencing in the playgrounds to make it possible to play more than one game at a time in a ground.
By implementing these few suggestions can make a big difference and isolate those people in the society who only knows the language of making money even in sports.
Shabir Ahmad Shah is Manager Mehboob-ul-Alam Sports (Regd.JKSC)
