Stressing on the need for better education surrounding sports, former Indian captain Ravi Shastri said that India doesn’t need to depend on external support to organise world class events in the country.
“Why should we have people from outside telling us how to run an event? We’re damn good at doing it and we should be proud and do it ourselves. When you look at a property like the IPL, when it started it looked very good on the surface, two years in, it became global and then three years later, the top 6 global properties in sport,” he stated.
Speaking to the press at an event organised by Greycells Education on Monday, Shastri known for his ‘chapati shot’ (flicking the ball off his pads) believes that developing communication skills in Indian sports is the need of the hour.
“When you’ve played the game, still at times, a lot of people do level 1 and level 2 coaching. Not that they learn too much there, especially if you’ve played at the highest level. But it gives you a different spin on how you can communicate to individuals.”
He admitted that there’s a long way to go in terms of developing the sporting ecosystem as a whole. Suggesting that apart from playing the game, employment opportunities surrounding the game are in plenty but he reckons currently there exists a knowledge gap.
“One man cannot do everything for a star. He will try and do it but he’s not skilled. For handling one cricketer, 5 people need to be there. One for Twitter, one for fitness, endorsements, there’s also someone for wealth management. At the moment one person handles everything”, he explained.
Shastri reckons that students need to develop niche skills which is the need of the hour. Suggesting that having specialised individuals would ensure the athlete focuses only on the game and not external aspects.
“You’ve got the kabaddi league, tennis league and hockey league. But who handles the stars? Stars don’t have time to take a call from someone looking for an endorsement deal. But if there’s someone who’s skilled at that, knows how to make it click, those are the guys we’re looking for.
“In a country that’s growing at this rate, the 18-30 age category has to be tapped. They need to be given facilities to come out of their shell and do different things, the shouldn’t be shy of doing it,” he added.
The former Indian team director credited his school for laying the foundation of his career and also revealed that unlike what most people would think, he was an easy going kid during his school days.
“I was pretty chillax! I was in Don Bosco High School in Mumbai. It’s a cool school. We had a lot of sports, which was good. There were opportunities so you couldn’t give an excuse like I should have played tennis instead of cricket. We had everything.”
Shastri’s mother was a college professor while his father was a doctor. His parents ensured that he never put education on the backburner despite him having already made his international debut.
“I came back from New Zealand and completed my graduation. If I wasn’t in New Zealand, I would have got a first-class. I got 59.99%,” he signed off.
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