is india the least 'sporting' nation in the world??

[DingDong]

not a troll thread. i love india and the indian fans but..

india have only ever been good at cricket and even at that they have never been all that good they went through like a decade of not being able to win a single test away and even when they were no 1 they absolutely had no depth. with a billion ppl u'd think they'd be able to find a few players even with all the poverty and the academic achievements being rated higher...
they are also absolute pants at every other sport i don't think they have won a gold medal at olympics in decades and i have not heard of them comepeting in any other sport.

what is the reason for this? (not a troll thread genuinely curious)

 

[benchmark00]

Hockey.
Sh00ting.
Being ****s (if considered a sport)

 

[Spikey]

lack of meat iirc

 

[DingDong]

lack of meat iirc

ok so not everybody eats meat but there must be a good 300 million or so who aren vegetarian spikey

 

[Spikey]

pull your head in imo

 

[Prince EWS]

india are trying hard ok

 

[Spikey]

india are trying hard ok

hey let's not start saying things we can't take back. trust me on that.

 

[DingDong]

serious answers plz

 

[Black_Warrior]

India is not a great sporting nation no doubt..but are they really that different from other subcontinental nations? What have Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh achieved? Ok Pakistan used to be good at hockey..the key word being used to.

And the popularity of cricket has hurt other sports like hockey and football big time in India.

 

[Prince EWS]

serious answers plz

plz comment....

 

[Daemon]

plz comment....

 

[DingDong]

India is not a great sporting nation no doubt..but are they really that different from other subcontinental nations? What have Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh achieved? Ok Pakistan used to be good at hockey..the key word being used to.

And the popularity of cricket has hurt other sports like hockey and football big time in India.

dont get me wrong india has been very important in every other aspect arts, academics, food, religions etc just a bit strange that it has under achieved so much in sport.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

Tbf developing nations tend to spend money on other things than sport. When India has a GDP per capita equal to the average Western country they'll be hard to beat in cricket.

 

[Shri]

DingDong is always right ****s! Don't troll, srs replies only.

 

[Black_Warrior]

dont get me wrong india has been very important in every other aspect arts, academics, food, religions etc just a bit strange that it has under achieved so much in sport.

Yes because those fields are given more importance..As someone said..developing nations, especially Asian cultures in general still don't take sports very seriously.

Pick a random parent from the subcontinent and ask him how he/she would react if their son wanted to go for a career in sports..say cricket or football and see the response you get.

Its a cultural thing. The focus is more on education, a 'stable' career like medicine, engineering, finance, banking, IT etc.

 

[Contra]

The IPL is making cricket a more stable career though.

 

[Cevno]

Should be moved to Other Sports forum.

 

[Black_Warrior]

The IPL is making cricket a more stable career though.

When Asian people look for stability, they don't really look for huge sums of money, they want something that is risk free and brings decent money. Problem with sports is that the risk of failure is very high. We only hear of the players that make it..how about the thousands who tried and failed. That is what prevents Asian families from looking at sports as a reasonable career option..or not just sports but even a career in something like the arts, or music or writing. People who go for those careers usually face a lot of opposition and have to break a lot of traditional rules and restrictions.

 

[miscer]

difficult to say. I would use the argument that south asians tend to (genetically) have the least lean body mass and highest body fat % even at comparably low BMI's (to say caucasians or africans) making them less likely to be as naturally "athletic." This has been proven in study after study and the WHO actually recommends south asians keep their BMI 3-4 points lower than the rest of the world to avoid diabetes. But that's not a good argument because pakistan has been fairly successful in test cricket despite having far less people.

I think it comes down to genetics, poverty and lack of sporting culture besides cricket. But it's hard to argue that these 3 things make up for 1.x billion people. Or perhaps they do since India obviously isn't successful in sports.

I could post some of the studies if people want to see them.

edit: not trying to be racist or anything btw, im indian myself and this is all backed by hard science and the World Health Organization acknowledges it as well. or at least they acknowledge the body fat %, lean body mass and BMI part not the idea that, that could mean poor athletic performance as that would be politically incorrect.

 

[kiwiviktor81]

difficult to say. I would use the argument that south asians tend to (genetically) have the least lean body mass and highest body fat % even at comparably low BMI's (to say caucasians or africans) making them less likely to be as naturally "athletic." This has been proven in study after study.

Although I agree with this, to me it seems like an argument for Indians being good at cricket. No other major sport requires as much skill/strategy as opposed to brute strength as cricket does, so I can understand why a people with less muscle (and probably less natural aggression/viciousness) would flock to it.

Having said that, I think the nature of cricket is changing, with guys like David Warner starting to dominate. Perhaps cricket in the future will require more strength and will become more like baseball.