It was not something extra ordinary that I achieved but it was more like dream come true for me when I got selected for U-19 State Championship.
Around 60 players were there on the first day. And on that day only 22 were selected and others were told to try next year and to participate more in football. It was nice to know that I was in team and also my school teammates.
So gradually came the last day of the Camp. Final team was announced and not much to my amaze, 5 players were selected from recommendation. They were the least deserving in the team. But that's reality in India and you have to live with it.
Next day, in morning we were told to meet at Gurgaon bus stand at 7 a.m. We all reached by time and on the spot we were told that on very day we have a match at 1 p.m. As we were champions of last year, so we were straight in 2nd round.
But the opening of the tournament took place a day before. I was really amazed that why did not we left Gurgaon a day before??
But I got my answer from my teammate as the looser team of round 1 will leave the place(Knock Out Policy) and they did not have the room facility to fix a extra team.
We reached the place at around 12.10 after travelling around 4 hours and empty stomach. And in 50 minutes we were having a match. We were given so called refreshment and then we changed our kit on the ground itself as we were not even shown our rooms. All the faclilties were pathetic. Ground was more like farming field rather than turf ground. Food was no good and we all went highway DHABAS for our food.
Seeing all this I realised why India does not do well in olympics or in other sports rather than cricket.
In India, I don't think we lack the potential or the capability to be good in sports. But all we lack is infrastructure. Then how one can forget the politics in team games. Well we will not improve if we don't start working on these problems.
