I visited an Indian broadcaster last year — they wanted feedback on what they were putting out on their sports channels. During the convers...
I visited an Indian broadcaster last year — they wanted feedback on what they were putting out on their sports channels. During the conversation, they revealed that they had also been conducting internal surveys as part of an exercise to find out what the current generation wanted to watch and who are the sports heroes that appeal to them the most.
And then, almost casually, they mentioned that this generation of ‘10-18-year-olds’ doesn’t recognise Sachin Tendulkar. To this generation, the stars are Virat Kohli, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.
My first reaction was one of disbelief…how could this even be possible? He had done enough to stay relevant for at least a decade without even doing anything, right?
Tendulkar, one of India’s greatest icons, had retired from ODIs in 2012 and from Test cricket in 2013. He had scored a 100 international centuries and the most runs in international cricket. Most importantly, he had allowed India to take a modicum of pride in the game when little of that quality was freely available.
But were six years enough to make the younger generation move on? Are our attention spans so short now? Is this what we call a lasting legacy?
Eventually, I made my peace with...
