Listen to The Hindu's Sports Editor Nirmal Shekar speak to our Sports-Writer Arun Venugopal about India's showing at the Commonweath Games — with a guest appearance by golden girl Dipika Pallikal — India's tour of England, the Jadeja-Anderson controversy and more. Reach out to us @thehindusports and #SaturdaysWithShekar. Editing: Lavanya Prabhakaran
Arun Venugopal: Hello and welcome, this is Arun Venugopal and you are listening to Saturdays With Shekar. We are into our fifth episode – a mini-mini landmark so to say but still congratulations to our wonderful team that helps us bring out the show. We have with us a man who has got his philosophical apparatus firmly in place, Nirmal Shekar, Sports Editor of The Hindu. Delighted to have you here, Shekar.
Nirmal Shekar: Delighted to be here again.
AV: First up, the Commonwealth Games. How did you think the whole event panned out, especially in comparison with the last edition in Delhi? Relatively scandal-free, one would say?
NS: It was certainly scandal free and that was to be expected. In the run up to the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010, we saw a lot of things crop up and they continued through the Games; we had infrastructure problems till the last minute. After the Games, all those financial irregularities came out. Certainly Glasgow was a tremendous success compared to Delhi, organisationally.
AV: Looking back, despite the phenomenal performance by the Indian contingent, was the 2010 Games an opportunity missed by Delhi and India? Given the infrastructural nightmare that it was…
NS: It was an opportunity missed. We should have planned better, looking back. But I think Indian organisers have learned from every major event. Today, four years later, India is definitely better prepared to host a big event, like the Commonwealth Games, perhaps even the Olympics in 10-15 years.
AV: Fingers crossed, until then. Let’s talk about India’s performance at the Games. Finishing fifth overall, with 64 medals, reasonable showing, Shekar?
NS: It’s definitely a good showing; not a great showing, not unexpected, certainly not poor either. It’s nice to watch lot of young people come through in games in which India had never won medals before, like squash. Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa winning gold medals… good to see them coming through.
AV: As we continue to discuss India’s showing, let’s listen to what Dipika Pallikal has to say about her victorious CWG campaign.
Dipika Pallikal speaks on her CWG gold and Joshna Chinappa
''In the doubles we played extremely well through the tournament. Yes, from the first round thinking about winning the gold might have been far fetched because we had never won a medal in squash. So we (Joshna and I) just took it step by step. We come together for team events every year. But as a doubles team we come together only once in four years like for the Commonwealth Games. But myself and Joshna share a very strong bond on and off the court. We understand each other and have a solid gameplan.''
AV: Shekar, how do you put in context Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal’s feat of winning India’s first gold in squash?
NS: I would have loved to see a young Indian squash player win an individual gold medal, but that is not far away, I guess, given what Dipika and Joshna have accomplished. Tremendous achievement, hats off to them, but I would still love to see an individual gold medal in squash in the Commonwealth Games or even the Asian Games.
AV: Here’s a listener question for you on Facebook, Shekar, from Vignesh Ananthasubramanian Iyer. A lot of gold medals were expected from badminton and boxing... But eventually Indian shuttlers and pugilists failed to clinch the highest prizes...What according to you is the reason for the poor performances in these two events???? Were the shuttlers and boxers complacent in the #CWG2014????
NS: I don’t think they were complacent. I don’t think it was a particularly poor showing, though expectations were perhaps too high especially in boxing, given what Vijender and others have done. Boxing was a bit of a disappointment, but Kashyap won gold in badminton and our mixed doubles team did well to make the final. So I am pretty happy with our performance in badminton except that Sindhu could have maybe done a bit better and won a gold medal. That was the only disappointment; otherwise I am not surprised at all.
AV: We look at sports jodis and often wonder what sort of impact does the presence of one person have when her/his partner or spouse is competing in an event. Well, Dipika Pallikal sure has plenty of nice things to say about Dinesh Karthik.
Dipika Pallikal speaks on Dinesh Karthik:
''It’s great. When you perform at such a platform and you are a medal prospect, you want to win a medal for your family and friends. Unfortunately my parents could not be there. I am just glad that Dinesh was there and I could share those moments which will definitely go down as one of my favourite moments ever.''
AV: Moving on to some cricket now. Even as the fourth Test is taking place, it’s still hard to completely move away from the Jadeja-Anderson episode. What do you think of the verdict, Shekar? A listener, @vharish1995 on Twitter has this for you: @the_hindu @nirmalshekar Is ICC acting in justice by letting off the two players without reprimanding any of them? #SaturdaysWithShekar
NS: In a way, I think so. They put processes in place and these are the final judgements that came out of those processes and I am happy they had this in place. But I think the ICC has to look at its Code of Conduct more carefully in the future and ensure that incidents like this do not happen regularly, perhaps never, on the field.
AV: Would you suggest issuing red cards or yellow cards, just like how they do in football?
NS: I wouldn’t suggest that; that would not be cricket, in the first place! `What I would like to see is umpires on the field being given more powers to handle such incidents minute by minute, as they happen.
AV: More questions on the subject. Dhrubo Jyoti @dhrubo127. Is anderson issue being dragged on by BCCI? Bias charge beginning to look like sour grapes. @TheHindu #SaturdayswithShekar
NS: Not exactly sour grapes. Yes, India suffered a big defeat in the third Test but I don’t think the charge was carried on because of the defeat; it had nothing to do with India losing the third match. As Dhoni said, he thought he was doing the right thing but now he himself has said the issue is closed and he does not want to look back. I think the same way too; there is no point looking back now.
AV: Here’s an interesting question on what dominated the discussion in the last episode. This question is from Ram Km on Twitter with the handle ram_k27. “The recent wave generated by the ProKabaddi leagues owes a large part to its covering by a private channel, the way it is packaged. Is this one of the solutions to the way less-famous Indian sports can reach out? Has Doordarshan lost its relevance in this context?
NS: I think that looking back a long way, Doordarshan did a great job to put Indian sports on television. Hats off to them for that, but the new private channels coming in are doing a great job too with new sports and I am very happy that kabaddi has generated so much public interest and so many people are watching it in primetime.
AV: Well, that’s a wrap on this episode folks. Thanks so much for supporting us and Keep listening to us on thehindu.com. Do follow us on Facebook and Twitter @TheHinduSports. Hope your weekend’s gonna be as exciting as it ought to be. Until next time then, this is Arun Venugopal saying tata, bye-bye, and take care.
