The Asian Games is not the Asia Cup

India vs Japan match card (BCCI)

With 10 days to go for the Asian Games, there is plenty of talk in the media. Can India win 100 medals? That is the question being asked. We also saw a gala send-off in Delhi the day before yesterday. The media turned up in numbers and the mood is upbeat.

I am told that more than 100 media personnel from India have been accredited for the Asian Games. I don’t know how many will eventually make the trip, but suffice it to say the number will be many times greater than in Glasgow, where only a handful of Indian media were present to document the exploits of our athletes.

But the Asian Games also brings plenty of challenges. With 100 medals expected over 16 days, there will be multiple medal-winning performances on any given day. Add cricket to the mix and the issue becomes even more complicated.

Will the travelling media be asked to cover cricket on a regular basis, or will they be allowed to document multi-sport stories as directed by their editors? If it is the former, what is the difference between an Asia Cup and an Asian Games?

My worry is that we will see younger journalists being asked to follow the cricket team, and that is where a huge opportunity will be lost. To leave the weightlifting arena on 23 September to document India’s cricket training, for example, would be a travesty. And some editors sitting back home, with little domain knowledge of other sports, could end up doing just that.

The Asian Games is the best opportunity for journalists to experience a multi-discipline event on the ground. It is a chance to learn the nuances of shooting, boxing, weightlifting, athletics and archery first-hand. Being at the venues for these events is a huge learning experience.

The presence of cricket at the Games cannot overwhelm the other sports. That is a risk we run in India because of cricket’s overarching dominance of the media space.

The deal is simple. If India are playing Japan in the cricket quarter-finals on 28 September and Murali Sreeshankar is jumping for Asian Games gold at the same time, you know where you need to be. The first is a no-contest; the second has huge significance for India’s Olympic ambitions.

And yet, I am afraid I will see more Indian media at the former. A Vaibhav Sooryavanshi century will make headlines, while key stories from other sports could be lost in the process.

With 10 days to go before the competition, this is the one thing I would like to point out: the Asian Games is about a lot more than cricket. It isn’t the Asia Cup, and we would do well to remember that.

Mohsin Naqvi and his shenanigans don’t need to make headlines in Japan. We cannot keep helping him divert media attention from the Imran Khan issue. People can see through what is being attempted, and the media should not feed into that narrative.

With India poised to win 100 medals, cricket will account for only two. Let’s hope we document the other medal-winning stories as well.

For more updates on the Asian Games, follow RevSportz

The post The Asian Games is not the Asia Cup appeared first on Sports News Portal | Revsportz.



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