Sports
India has no recognised national game or sport. Some of the major sports played by India at the international level include cricket, field hockey andassociation football.
Cricket is without doubt the most popular sport in India. It is also the most widely played sport in India. Its popularity in India is such that it is often considered as an unofficial religion among Indians. The Indian national cricket team has been fairly successful at the international level, winning the1983 and 2011 Cricket World Cup events, the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, and shared the 2002 ICC Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka. It was also the top team in Test cricket for a brief period[308]. Cricket in India is administered by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI, which is one of world's richest sporting bodies. It conducts domestic tournaments such as the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep Trophy, the Deodhar Trophy, the Irani Trophy, and the NKP Salve Challenger Trophy. The BCCI also conducts a domestic Twenty20 competition known as the Indian Premier League, which is franchise-based and is extremely popular.
India used to be a powerhouse in field hockey, but in recent times, they have fallen dramatically and are now one of the middle-rung teams in the sport. Its popularity in India has also declined in parallel with the team's decline. Field hockey in India in India is administered by Hockey India. The Indian national hockey team won the inaugural 1975 Hockey World Cup. India has won 8 of their 9 gold medals at the Olympics in hockey (1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1964 and 1980), while also winning 1 silver medal in 1960 and 2 bronze medals in 1968 and 1972.
Association football is also a popular sport in India. In Indian states such as West Bengal, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the north-eastern states, its popularity exceeds that of cricket. In recent times, football has also become popular in metropolitan cities such as Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi due to the telecasting of European football leagues such as the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga and UEFA Champions League. The indoor game chess, said to have originated in India in ancient times as chaturaṅga, is also a popular sport in India. India has produced a number of grandmasters such as Vishwanathan Anand and Koneru Humpy among others. Other sports in which Indians have made a mark include tennis,badminton, shooting, archery, boxing, wrestling, cue sports and motorsports.
In the Olympics, India has not been very successful and has won only 26 medals overall, 11 of them coming from hockey, since it first competed in 1900. However, India has performed well in smaller international sporting events such as the Commonwealth Games, the Afro-Asian Games and the Asian Games, while being the dominant country at the South Asian Games. India has hosted the Asian Games in 1982, the Afro-Asian Games in 2003 and the Commonwealth Games in 2010. India has also hosted major cricket tournaments such as the 1987, 1996 and 2011 Cricket World Cups, as well as the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy. The major international sporting events held annually in India include the Chennai Open (tennis), marathon events like theMumbai Marathon and Delhi Half Marathon, the Indian Grand Prix (formula 1) and the Indian Masters (golf).
In India, several traditional indigenous sports remain fairly popular, among them kabaddi, kho kho, pehlwani and gilli-danda. Some of the earliest forms of Asian martial arts, such askalarippayattu, musti yuddha, silambam, and marma adi, originated in India. The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Awards are the highest forms of government recognition for athletic achievement; the Dronacharya Award is awarded for excellence in coaching.
