Decade Of Leagues

Every era, every age, every century, every decade is later identified for some unique and historical events and inventions that happened in that duration. Because such events and inventions have a lasting impact on the mankind and its history. Hence it is important to remember such times with their highlights.

If you look at the present decade in India, especially sports and games field, the decade can easily be identified as a decade of leagues.

Every game is played at different levels across the world, like school and college teams, regional teams, state level to national and international level. Apart from the official tournaments where countries send their teams, there are also tournaments held by other organizers, where teams privately owned by individuals or partners play with each other. 

Football leagues are among the most popular leagues in the world. The teams participating in these leagues like Manchester United, Barcelona have worldwide fan base. 

In India, cricket being the most popular game, the league culture was prominently brought to the nation by IPL (Indian Premier League). It is one of the most followed cricket tournament in the world now. 

Other games followed the suit, and in recent years we saw leagues for hockey, boxing, kabaddi etc. A cricket league for celebrities (CCL) was also started. 

The league is formed by a number of teams which select talented players from any country, region, religion to play for them. Talent is the only defining factor here. 

Apart from the official games within countries, these leagues have their own benefits. When a country is playing against other it is a matter of national pride and patriotism for the fans of each country. The love for nation unites with love for the game.

But in the leagues, it is purely the love for the game. It helps to increase the popularity of the game, and give a chance to fans to see great players from different countries and regions join forces to play with each other.

In IPL, it was a treat to see a pair of Sachin and Sanath open batting together, or to see Sachin and Ponting play together. This would not have been possible otherwise. Players like Harbhajan and Andrew Simonds which were involved in a row in major controversy were able to forget it all and play cricket professionally for a same team.

Celebrities who would be seen on field very rarely playing a exhibition game or a charity match were seen regularly playing together. It was a sure delight for fans.

An Indian game like Kabaddi, which was sidelined by cricket for ages, and had been ignored by audiences for long, was revived and popularized again by a Pro Kabaddi League.

The league are also benefiting their respective games by giving a huge platform for the budding talent in young players to be recognized quickly. 

India is a populous country. It's population is many times larger than many small countries in world which produce legendary players. So statistically speaking, India should produce more talented players, if not legendary. But it is not that way.

The sports infra in India is still developing and has a tremendous scope for improvement.

The leagues push the country in that direction. Many talented players which were struggling before to get noticed have found fame and money by playing leagues.

Now, India's first world cup winning captain, Kapil Dev has come up with a new league. He's been reaching out to public with tweets and videos about this league. #EkNayiLeague is trending. What's that is about? Well that's the suspense. Kapil is posting tweets and videos speaking about this league.

Watch in above video, where he is explaining the hit wicket in cricket (getting out because of yourself), and says if you play with your heart in this new league, you would loose.

Now in this video message, he is praising Dhoni for making a wonderful team, and in which he's put his heart. But he is also saying that don't put your heart in my new league, because you would loose. One more surprise in this video is Kapil Dev's never before seen mimicry skills.

Here is a similar message for Sania Mirza. Kapil praises Sania, for performing well in the tennis, which is a rare arena for Indian girls. He also advises her that don't play my league using your heart.

In these videos, he is promising viewers that he will tell them about this league on his twitter handle. So here is the link to Kapil Dev's twitter handle, keep a watch on it to know more.

Since he is emphasizing in each video, that this league is not the one to play with your heart, my guess is it is to be played using your brains, your mind. So I guess it is a league of chess. 

If my guess is correct, it would be a welcome event. India is the origin of this wonderful mind game. Grand masters like Vishwanathan Anand belong to India. And a league of chess would do wonders for budding chess players in India.

Whatever it is, I am one of many who are eagerly waiting for this. You also check it out on this website, make a guess.

This post is my entry in #EkNayiLeague activity by EkNayiLeague.com