Sports

Hockey, in which India has an impressive record with eight Olympic gold medals, is officially the national sport. Other popular games are football, cricket, basketball, volleyball and badminton. Cricket has become a very popular game and India, once one-day cricket champions, staged the World Cup in 1987 and co-hosted it with Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 1996.

Sunil Gavaskar's record of 34 test centuries remains unbeaten though his aggregate of 10,122 test runs was surpassed by Allan Border of Australia. Many argue that Sachin Tendulkar is today's best batsman with his flamboyant stroke play and heap of runs he has accumulated in all forms of the game

In games like tennis and billiards, which are played by a very small percentage of the population, Indians have nevertheless made a mark in the international arena. At the young age of 17, Vishwanathan Anand became an international chess grandmaster. Today he is seen as the only tough challenger of the world champion, Gary Kasparov. Following Anand, a large number of pre-teen Indians have emerged with a lot of promise. Geet Sethi has won both the world amateur and professional billiard championships, while in 1990 Leander Paes became the third Indian Wimbledon junior champion. Leander Paes won the bronze medal at the tennis singles competition in the 1996 Olympics. The recently held Commonwealth Games at Manchester, UK, produced many new sports stars in shooting, weightlifting, athletics, and Women's field hockey.

After the IX Asian Games in New Delhi in 1982, the capital city now boasts of some very modern sports facilities. Such facilities are also being developed in other parts of the country. With the introduction of new equipment and techniques of coaching and training, there is hope that India will show a marked improvement in various disciplines of sports. Besides sports and games included in the international sporting agenda, there are many other that have developed indigenously and are played by people in the villages. Among these is wrestling, a sport that has developed many local styles and schools. It is taught for the most part in traditional gymnasia with packed mud floors. There are also several indigenous systems of martial arts.

Among the indigenously developed games, the most popular are kabaddi and kho-kho. National competitions are held in these two games. Among equestrian sports, tent-pegging has a uniquely Indian flavour. Camel races and elephant races are also uniquely Indian. Among the indigenous water sports, the snake-boat race, which takes place in the backwaters of Kerala during the Onam festival, has now become an international tourist attraction.