The beautiful city of Hyderabad with its regal history and legacy is also a one-stop haven for young techies and whiz-kids with its forward looking window open to innovative ventures and technological marvels. But remarkably, it could well be reckoned as our country’s reservoir of internationally acclaimed sportsman in the past from the legendary cricketers CK Nayadu and elegant ML Jaisimha and class batsman like Azharuddin and VVS Laxman to the incomparable badminton coach, P Gopichand and his protégé Kidambi Srikanth, just to name a few.
In the last decade, it has been giving to India world-beaters in different sporting disciplines, producing champion super-women of the likes of Sania Mirza (tennis) , Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu (badminton-singles) and Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa (badminton-doubles), with the first three becoming household names because of the on-court exploits.
Add now to this list of extraordinary women, the name of the soft-spoken but feisty captain of the Indian Cricket team, Mithali Raj, who became the first Indian cricketer to amass 2000 runs in T-20 format as she edged past the King Kohli. She is also the highest run-getter in Women’s ODI cricket with an amazing average of over 51 ( more than even the God of Cricket, and leading scorer in men’s ODI cricket, Sachin Tendulkar ! ). Generally, there is no huge display of emotions from Raj on reaching any landmark but like all greats, she has acknowledged on different platforms the stellar role of her father in shaping her illustrious career in cricket which started from the age of 16 as she made her ODI debut !
With such an inspiration of girls and many promising youngsters like Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Raut , Harmeet Kaur and others and the veteran bowler, Jhoolan Goswami ( the highest wicket-taker in women’s ODI cricket) in the team, women’s cricket is improving by leaps and bounds but needs great support and nurturing from the authorities to get the same aggression and confidence of the present Indian men’s team ! For starters, while we all know the saga of the coach selection for our team lead by Virat Kohli, most of us would’nt know the name of the coach for the women’s team !
But Hyderabad can boast of a super coach from its ranks, the legendary P Gopichand – albeit in another wonderful sport, badminton and is doing yeomen service to discover and create champions and to popularise the sport and physical fitness among the young boys and girls of today. People like him and other legends like Prakash Padukone and Rahul Dravid must be given all the administrative support by the Govt.authorities for they are the ones who can ‘lift’ all the talk of our country’s sporting culture to great heights. They can show the way to other big states what excellence in sports is all about.
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