The showdown between the players of the national cricket team and the cricket authorities has highlighted the urgent need to delink sports, not merely cricket, from politics. Team Nepal skipper Paras Khadka is reported to have told reporters at the end of Tuesday’s inconclusive talks with the government and cricket officials that their protest was not aimed at any particular person but for “setting up a system” devoted to cricket. By the end of Wednesday’s talks, the cricket crisis seemed to be over with all sides agreeing to the formation of a committee to oversee the future course of Nepali cricket. 

All’s well that ends well. But the fact is that the Nepali national cricket players, by resorting to protest against the cricket authorities, have highlighted the need to overhaul the entire sports scenario in Nepal. This is because sports, like most other aspects of the people’s daily life, has been politicised and exploited by cunning politicians.

Political games 

Leaders who have no qualms about using school children and college students to further their own personal and party ambitions could not leave the field of sports alone either. One of the most important lessons sportspersons learn in their games is fair play (this applies to all sports) and yet, this is exactly what the leadership of all shades lack. In the course of the cricketers’ protest, the questions of so-called salary and allowances were mentioned in media reports (though the cricketers themselves denied such demands saying that their protests were aimed at improving the system). But by and large, moneymaking is not the aim of any sports, let alone a so-called gentleman’s game like cricket. In the old days, professional players and athletes were barred from participating in the Olympic games but times have changed and so have Olympic ideals. Everything from athletics to football has now become professional and there is no chance of turning back the clock. 

Most of us remember the times when we had to foot our own bill to play, that is, we had to collect ‘donations’ from team mates to join a tournament. If one got hurt while playing, he had to tend to himself. Clubs back then were in no position to finance any kind of medical treatment for even minor injuries. The national associations which ran the tournaments were equally bankrupt. No wonder parents and guardians were against their children taking part in sports. Such a situation no longer persists. Sports teams, especially football and cricket clubs, are now being sponsored by big businesses and are in a position to pay ‘salaries’ to the players. They are also provided with medical facilities and other forms of allowances. If sports clubs can become so well endowed, the national sports associations can be expected to have done even better. No wonder the political parties eye these organisations, including the apex body, the National Sports Council. And political parties are not merely attracted to the money that these organisations are provided with. The parties also appear to believe that they can influence—or is it ‘indoctrinate’—most of the youths if their men and women are in positions of power in national sports organisations. 

Long view 

The lesson of the recent protest by the Nepali cricketers and the agreement to which they arrived with the concerned authorities should be a pointer not merely for cricket but also to all other sports in the country. There should be minimal political interference in sports and children must be encouraged to play all kinds of games from an early age. It is only in this way that the country can hope to catch up with other countries in any game. But we have yet to institutionalise the practice of selecting a few players and training them to compete in regional and international meets. The result has been a wide gap between the chosen ones and the rest of the youths who genuinely take to sports. The need, as most will agree, is to ensure that Nepalis from school age to adulthood have enough facilities such as playgrounds, where they can play and sharpen their skills in the sport of their choice. It is important to cultivate youths from a young age, give them adequate opportunities to practice their skills by organising local, regional and national tournaments and then groom them for international meets. 

The committee formed by the Sports Council, the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), the government and the agitating cricketers will hopefully prepare a long-term plan for the future development of the cricket in the country. Hopefully, this will mark the beginning of such efforts in other sports as well, particularly popular team sports like football, volleyball, basketball and hockey (which is now virtually dead in Nepal). If this happens, the protest by the national cricket players will not have been in vain as this will ultimately help the entire sports sector.