The true essence of sportsmanship

It’s been a really nice past 2 months with a lot of sporting action and with the football world cup, it just promises to get even better. So i wonder, what is it about sports that gets us all so pumped up? What is sports all about?
Is it about the pride of representing your country? Or the desire to be remembered in history? Or is it a celebration of human athleticism both physical and mental? For an avid sports fan like me, it’s all of the above. For me sports is the epitome of single-mindedness, of team spirit, of the never say die attitude and most of all, sports is about enjoying your game, and giving it all you have. It’s the passion for winning that must drive a sportsman, not money, not fame.
I have always been a fan of sports based movies, and all of them seem to have a recurring theme. The under dog, against all odds wins the hearts of all fans. Whether it be the coach in chak de india who wants to win to remove the blemishes on his past, or Denzel Washington in Remember the titans, who uses the sports team as a means to unite the blacks and white, or more recently Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon in Invictus who use the rugby team as a means of uniting the nation. This is what sports has always done. More so in our country.
Then you have the brilliant rocky series which seem to have the same plot. Stallone is out of shape, he gets motivated, he gets back the desire to win, and he gets back in shape.
So that brings me to what I think are most important qualities a sportsman must possess.
1. Desire to win
2. Belief in teamwork
3. Physical and mental fitness
4. Most importantly, victory being the main motivator
Any person watching the English Premier League with interest this season would have seen two fairy tale stories, stories which could be the making of any Oscar winning movies, just cut short at the final juncture. The stories of Fulham and Portsmouth football clubs.
Fulham had qualified for the europa league, (plz google if u wanna knw more abt it) and this average club with average players had gone on to reach the final of the europa league, beating mighty European power houses on their way. Their victory over Juventus was one of the best comebacks of all times, where they scored four goals to win. The victory looked so unlikely, that their captain danny Murphy had already left for home thinking they were out. The team reached to the finals and lost to a better team in Athletico Madrid. But the more important thing was how this team captured the imagination of all neutrals around the world. How the whole of England was supporting a team that was their club rival.
The story of Portsmouth is even more fascinating. In this commercial world where the sports clubs were taken over by corporate and run as their profit making ventures, a series of faulty ownerships had left the club with a debt of around 120 million pounds. The club was relegated from the premier league and is definitely on its way down. The club was in such a poor state that it’s players and manager were not being paid the wages and had only a desire to win motivating them. The players had uncertain futures. They knew the final of the FA cup was the last time they will be playing together. No one had expected them to get so far. But they had. They had fought all odds and reached the final.
Jamie O Hara, one of their squad members, had a spinal injury and still wanted to play in the final, knowing very well that an aggravation of that injury could take him out of the game for years. At 20, he risked his whole career for that one chance to give back to the fans. And he fought valiantly. His manager came out with a very inspiring statement about how love was more important to him than money (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1278494/Avram-Grant-Portsmouth-havent-paid-wages-love.html ). But the greatest moment arrived after the team lost the final. You could see the Portsmouth players supporting, even more than the Chelsea ones. They knew they had no future. That they were doomed. But they wanted to rejoice in the present. To give a final hurrah to their players who will no longer remain theirs.
So all this then brings me to our very own Indian Cricket team. I am not so sad that they had lost the world cup. But what Gary Kirsten told about the fitness of his players says that they had lost the desire to win. They have been pampered a lot and have lost the hunger to win, a hunger which was surprisingly very prominent in their IPL ventures. I think it’s time we understand that the corporate funding and running of the cricket in India will get you the millions, it will get you the glamour, hell it will get you unprecedented fame, but it will kill that one component that is the very fundamental of sportsmanship, the desire to win. Lalit Modi, in all his shady and murky business of creating the IPL has given us a sad prospect when every young and upcoming cricketer would want to play cricket so that he can be a part of Mumbai Indians, Delhi Dare Devils and earn cash. Yes you would still want to represent your country when you are new, but the question is how long can you sustain your desire to win.
It is really sad that in India and the IPL in particular, the next time I watch a Portsmouth or a Fulham win, the question in my mind is “Was the match fixed?”