India is a land of diversity. We can see variety in our country in various aspects, such as religion, language, society and politics. It means there are various people of various races and various ideologies. Every day our country faces new issues and gets more and more diverse.
But for the growth of the nation, we have to unite. We all know the famous phrase, “United we stand and divided we fall”. With all this diversity, there are many things due to which people come together, such as festivals, music, art, events, sports etc. Out of all these things, sports have the potential to bring many people together.
Sporting events give many people to support and scream for their country. People of different races, languages, gender and age come together and enjoy the sport. And in our country, the most significant sport is cricket. Cricket is treated as a religion in India.
Australian cricket legend and former captain Steve Waugh has said, “ Cricket isn’t just a sport, it’s a religion, and Sachin is the God of cricket.” Similarly, the fans in India follow cricket in such a manner and do crazy things for their favorite cricketer. During a cricket match in a stadium, 40 to 50 thousand people scream in a common tone for the country.
When India won their first world cup in 1983, it created a massive boom in the country, and after that, it kept growing. From 1983 to 2011, in the gap of 28 years when we won our second world cup, cricket has become an industry of $2.25 billion. The BCCI is the biggest and the richest board in the world.
We can see cricket almost everywhere in India. And with the introduction of fantasy cricket everyone from children to adults, loves to watch and play cricket together. It is a team sport, and the joy of winning together creates a great atmosphere among the fans and players.
With the constant efforts from BCCI to grow it more and more, they introduced IPL in 2008, which again created a huge impact of it among fans, players and the economy. The short format helps many people to come together due to frequent matches for more than two months.
During the T20 world cup in Australia between India vs Pakistan, it had the highest ever viewership of around 1.8 crores and more than 90000 people in the Melbourne cricket stadium.
Cricket acts as a medium that creates patriotism and love for the country among the people. People get hugely inspired by the players and follow them in huge numbers. Virat Kohli is the most followed cricketer on Instagram in India, with 225 million followers.
After the 2002 riots between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat, there was a huge gap between the youths of Hindus and Muslims. Yuva Shakthi, a civil society group in Gujarat, initiated a cricket match on the condition that the teams should have an equal number of participants from both religions. It filled the gap between both communities and helped them to unite.
As a result, with various things, cricket helps to unite Indians more than anything else.
