How India Can Close Olympic Gap with China

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Crazy About Cricket

But having worked with the new India as an American management consultant, I have learned that India often has a few surprises lurking beneath the surface. In this case, digging reveals a more pleasant picture. It's not that Indians don't care about sports. If you combine the American passion for baseball, (American) football, and basketball, you don't begin to approach the Indians' love for cricket. Large foreign sponsors such as Pepsi (PEP), Coke (KO), Vodafone, Hyundai, Sony (SNE), and Indian companies such as Hero Honda, DLF, and others spend a fortune on cricket. In fact Bindra, who won the Olympic gold this month for air rifle shooting, was awarded 2.5 million rupees ($58,000) by the cricket body in India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

The problem is that cricket is not an Olympic sport and is unlikely to become one. However, the wild success of cricket's Indian Premier League, which launched this year, has convinced companies in India to build wider links to the world of sports. Some of this new funding will seek avenues other than cricket. Some physically adept athletes who play non-Olympic sports such as Kabaddi or Kho-Kho will be drawn to sports where world-class training could product medal winner in mainstream events.

In my view, private funding and nongovernmental zeal are likely to bear fruit for Indian athletes by the 2012 London Games. For example, in 2005, London-based steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal set up the Mittal Champions Trust with a $10 million endowment to find and train promising Indian athletes. Its flock of 32 produced over a dozen that qualified to travel to Beijing this year. Another group, Olympic Gold Quest, with less funding but more sports experience, supported just two athletes: shooter Gagan Narang and runner Tintu Luka. Gold Quest is the brainchild of Geet Sethi, a billiards champion, and Prakash Padukone, India's best-ever badminton player.

Mukesh Ambani at Beijing

I expect tens of millions of dollars of new private and corporate funding to support athlete training in India during the next five years. Mittal's endowment was inspired by watching India's dismal results in Athens in 2004; Mukesh Ambani, India's wealthiest resident, arrived in Beijing in his own jet and may take similar measures to train potential Indian Olympians. Ambani has already shown his affinity for sports: His company, Reliance Industries, owns the Mumbai Indians, a cricket team in the Indian Premier League.

There's also plenty of evidence that India can build and manage major infrastructure projects. The ultramodern Delhi Metro train system is the most celebrated instance of a program that has consistently beaten time targets and stayed closed to budget. In fact, Delhi Metro is being expanded all the way to the airport in advance of the Commonwealth Games. My work as a management consultant takes me all over the cities of India, and I observe new airports, highways, factories, and office towers coming up across the country, most of which will be completed by 2011 or so. As some of this talent and expertise is directed to an Olympic effort, I have no doubt that India can deliver what the International Olympic Committee may seek in its review in 2012.

So here are my predictions: Rising aspirations among India's politicians, bureaucrats, and business leaders will accelerate an alignment of interest focused on national pride. India will pull out all the stops in order to win the right to host the 2020 Games. If for some reason if it fails, India will go to the ends of the earth to host the following Olympiad. Alas, the Indian home team will still not be among the top 10 performers despite the home court advantage in 2020 or 2024. Cricket will continue to rule the Indian psyche. And India will have arrived on the international scene well in advance of the date it hosts the Olympic games.

Bagla is managing director at Amritt, a business consultancy based in Cerritos, Calif.