‘City must regain sports crown’
Hyderabad: As head of the Telangana tennis as well as badminton associations and patron of the Hyderabad Cricket Association, Mr K.T. Rama Rao wears many a sports hat. The IT and Panchayat Raj minister vows to provide the sporting scene in the city a major push as he sets out to rope in big ticket events as well as reclaim cricket glory that Hyderabad has lost over a period of time.
Forward steps: In my limited capacity I’ve done two things. One, we’ve got the Fed Cup back after eight years. Our efforts as a tennis association saw 13 countries participating in it. Two, we also got the Champions Tennis League to the city — Hyderabad was not on the list of venues. The third, Gopi (national badminton coach) and myself, have been successful in getting next year’s Badminton Asia Team Championships to Hyderabad. The world’s top shuttlers would participate in this tournament which will be held in February. The Championships are granted with Olympic Qualifying Points and will serve as Asia’s Continental Qualifying Rounds for the 2016 Thomas and Uber Cups (world team championships) that take place every two years. In tennis and badminton we are able to do some things and have made some progress.
Cricket clutter: The HCA definitely needs a lot of… (improvement). I had a tough conversation with Arshad Ayub (HCA president), John Manoj (secretary) and everybody else when I was offered the Patronship of the body. We need to do a lot because there is not a single current Test player from the city, which is a shame. We are definitely not where we are supposed to be. It’s a long way to go but Hyderabad needs to regain its glory. I have been talking to (former Test cricketer VVS) Laxman and Azhar saab (ex-India captain Mohammed Azharuddin) in that regard.
Game for life: In fact we’ve been supportive of every sport. That’s one of the things I’m big on — social infrastructure, social capital is as important as the physical infrastructure. There was a time when people were not just skeptical but apprehensive about taking up sports as a profession. Today, a Sania Mirza or a Saina Nehwal comes and you see a lot of youngsters playing. I think it’s a matter of time before things change. During the last regime, a lot of our sports achievers were promised rewards which were not delivered. The first Independence Day (after TRS came to power), our CM fulfilled the promises of the erstwhile regime. Not just the sports personalities, but their coaches too were rewarded. We have revived a lot of these awards that were forgotten.