Pakistan may have won more trophies in hockey than in cricket, its clear people are more attached with the latter
LAKKI MARWAT: Is it right to give hockey the status of being Pakistan’s national sport? Bear with me for a while; this question did not come up in my mind because of the poor show of the Pakistan hockey team in not qualifying for the Olympics. This question is based purely on common sense. Any sport attaining the status of a national sport in any country is supposed to have popular appeal. It is a sport that the people of that country need to be passionate about.
Having been born in the 1990s and talking from the vantage point of others who were born in the same decade and in the 1980s — people who comprise a major chunk of a population that is almost 60 per cent youth — I, personally, do not observe any reflection of popular appeal for hockey among our younger generation. Compared with hockey, cricket is much more popular. Its popularity can be testified through the fact that it is played in every nook and corner of the country for leisure. Cricket matches are watched by all and sundry with great interest and if there is a match between Pakistan and India, people become glued to television sets, leaving every other task aside. While Pakistan may have won more global trophies in hockey than in cricket, it is clear that people here are more emotionally attached with the latter rather than with the former. Therefore, cricket should be declared Pakistan’s national sport.
As an aside, there is a need to reflect on the hockey team’s poor performance over the last two decades and measures must be taken in order to revive the sport’s glorious past in the country.
Inam Ullah Marwat
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2015.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
