Cricket Celebrated as the Only Sports in India: An Analysis

Sports Journalism, in India is still developing, though there are different multifaceted sports played and trained in. Cricket remains a premier choice. A recent research done by BBC claims that in India 38% of Indians want to play and make a career in Cricket. The general population perception of people, is that sports like Football are international. Hockey, Kabaddi, Boxing etc are played and taught but are not as popular as Cricket. Therefore Cricket is India's de facto national sport but the extent of its dominance in the country's broadsheet newspaper was to be examined, for which, this research has been done. Times Of India was analysed, since it is the most read English newspaper and caters to the urban population and youth. It was also valuable to determine whether there was a significant share given to other sports. So for the sake of comparison, time frame selected was such that, Pro Kabaddi League and India vs West Indies Cricket tournament was going on. According to the research, Cricket gets both more coverage and prominence.