Last week, sports fans in India exploded with joy when Rohan Bopanna was crowned Men’s Doubles World No 1 at the Australian Open, making him, at almost 44, the oldest player ever to hold that coveted position. Back home, Bengaluru preened at the success of its homegrown lad, but with practiced flair; the city is used to its boys and girls doing rather well in the global sporting arena.
Strangely, Bengaluru’s vibrant sporting culture is not acknowledged as much as its podium-finish performances in other races, including IT, biotech, education, aerospace, microbreweries, or start-up unicorns. But the city has always had a strong leaning towards sport, partly because of a fortuitous coming together of several different factors – its mild year-round weather, which renders any kind of al fresco activity a pleasure; its undulating topography, which creates just the kind of challenges amateur runners, cyclists, hikers, and climbing enthusiasts love; and its history as a town beloved of the Wadiyar kings who were themselves fine sportsmen, patronising cricket, tennis and golf with equal enthusiasm.
The British, who ruled Mysore for the half century between 1831 and 1881, also played a role. In the Bangalore Cantonment, established in 1806, strong, fleet horses were much in demand by the cavalry, but the small local breeds did not make the cut. Enter, circa 1824, a canny 16-year-old from Shiraz, Iran, called Agha Aly Asker, with a contingent of his horse-trading family’s finest specimens in tow. Asker’s horses soon became the toast of the Cantonment. With no wars to worry about, British thoughts soon turned to sport that used horses – polo, racing and the annual hunt – kickstarting the city’s involvement in organized sport.
Two centuries after Aly Asker first arrived here, his descendant, Bengalurean Fouaad Mirza, continues to carry the equestrian torch – he won two silver medals at the 2018 Asian Games, and was the only Indian to qualify for any equestrian event at Tokyo 2020.
Golf, believed to have been invented by the Scots, was the other sport to make an early appearance in the Cantonment – the Bangalore Golf Course (estd 1876) was only the third golf course in the country. Today, the shining star in the Indian golfing firmament is young Bengalurean Aditi Ashok, who finished 4th at Tokyo 2020.
Of the city’s passion for cricket, and the roll-call of stellar cricketers it has produced or nurtured over the years – G Vishwanath, Prasanna, Chandra, Binny, Dravid, Kumble, Srinath, Prasad – little needs to be said. Beginning life in 1933 as the Mysore Cricket Association, the KSCA is today one of the best-organised state cricket associations in the country, and its home ground, the Chinnaswamy Stadium, has witnessed more thrilling feats than there is space to enumerate here. The Mysore State Lawn Tennis Association (today the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association), where Mahesh Bhupathi, and Bopanna himself, have trained, was also established around the same time.
In 1974, the National Institute of Sports (now the Sports Authority of India), chose to set up its Southern Centre, meant to cater to the entire region, at the Sri Kanteerava Stadium in the city. In 1980, Bengalurean Prakash Padukone was crowned World No 1 in badminton; in the same decade, sprinter Ashwini Nachappa (who on two occasions outran the great PT Usha) and heptathlete Reeth Abraham brought the city’s focus firmly to athletics.
Bengalurean engagement with sport, whether as players, audiences, patrons, coaches, enablers, or administrators, continues to grow, aided in large part by its beloved champion sportspersons, who invest time, money and talent in their own training centres of sporting excellence across the city. Win-win all around!
(Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)
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