Sports | Guts and glory

It was a decade in which Indian sport experienced a rare convergence of triumph and turbulence. Victories lifted national confidence, individual athletes rewrote gendered and cultural expectations, and cricket reinvented itself as a global entertainment industry. At the same time, scandal, corruption and excess revealed the cost of rapid commercialisation.The high point came in April 2011, when India lifted the ICC Cricket World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium. Twenty-eight years after Kapil Dev’s team had stunned the world, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side delivered a victory that felt both historic and inevitable. Dhoni’s calm leadership, the emergence of a new core of players and a home crowd’s emotional crescendo turned the final into a generational moment. The image of Sachin Tendulkar being carried on teammates’ shoulders symbolised not just a win, but the closing of a circle that had defined Indian cricket for two decades.That victory had been foreshadowed earlier in the decade by India’s breakthrough at the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in 2007. A young, underestimated team, led by a rookie captain, embraced the shortest format of the game with fearless intent. The title did more than add a trophy. It marked a cultural shift, giving Indian cricket a new generation of decision-makers and accelerating the sport’s transformation into a fast-paced, television-driven spectacle.Parallel to cricket’s dominance was a quieter but profound expansion of India’s sporting imagination. In 2008, Abhinav Bindra won India’s first-ever individual Olympic gold medal in shooting at the Beijing Games. Women athletes emerged as some of the decade’s most powerful icons. Sania Mirza’s rise brought Indian women’s tennis into the global spotlight. She expanded the space available to women in Indian sport and public life. Saina Nehwal’s ascent in badminton reinforced that shift; she became India’s most consistent global performer in an individual sport, winning major titles and reaching the world’s top rankings. Her success reflected the slow but significant emergence of institutional support systems outside cricket, particularly in academies and private training ecosystems..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;} Shooter Abhinav Bindra’s gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics marked India’s first-ever individual Olympic gold, shattering a century-old barrier in Indian sport (Photo: Getty Images) Mary Kom’s rise carried a different resonance. Competing from the margins, both geographically and socially, she became a multiple-time world boxing champion. Her journey broadened the idea of who could represent India on the world stage, long before institutional recognition fully caught up with her achievements. If these victories lifted Indian sport, the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010 dragged it into embarrassment. Conceived as a statement of India’s arrival as a global sporting host, the Games became synonymous with corruption, chaos and incompetence. Collapsing infrastructure, ballooning budgets and last-minute improvisation turned the event into what came to be known as the “Con Games”.Cricket’s commercial explosion followed a similar arc. The Indian Premier League, launched in 2008, revolutionised the sport. It turned cricket into a prime-time carnival, fused Bollywood with broadcasting, and created a billion-dollar industry almost overnight. Lalit Modi, the league’s architect, monetised every inch of the spectacle, transforming players into brands and matches into television events. The IPL democratised opportunity, created new stars and made Indian cricket the sport’s economic centre of gravity. But excess followed success. Modi’s flamboyant one-man control of the league eventually collapsed under allegations of financial impropriety and cronyism. That reckoning deepened under N. Srinivasan, whose dual role as BCCI president and IPL franchise owner blurred lines of accountability. The 2013 spot-fixing scandal, which implicated players, bookies and those close to power, shook public faith in the sport. Cricket, long India’s moral refuge, was suddenly vulnerable to the same institutional rot that afflicted politics and business.The decade ended with a farewell that felt like a national rite of passage. Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement from international cricket in November 2013 closed the most enduring chapter in Indian sport.What the decade ultimately revealed was that success without governance is fragile, and that sporting greatness, like national ambition, demands both excellence and accountability.- EndsPublished By: Yashwardhan SinghPublished On: Jan 3, 2026

Download App

Mood of the Nation Offer: Use promo code MOTN2026 to get ₹500 off on all Print + Digital subscriptions

Sports | Guts and glory

Indian sport delivered historic victories and new heroes, but rapid commercialisation, weak governance and corruption scandals exposed its fragility, proving that sporting greatness without accountability is ultimately unsustainable

PUBLICATIONS

TELEVISION

EVENTS

RADIO

GAMING

USEFUL LINKS

PRINTING

WELFARE

DISTRIBUTION

SYNDICATIONS

WEBSITES

EDUCATION