Kolkata: While cricket and football have been the most followed sports in the country for the last decade or so, different tournaments and leagues like Premier Badminton League (Badminton), International Premier Tennis League (Tennis), Pro-Kabbadi League (Kabaddi) and the rest have brought other sports to the forefront.
Chess is game of intellectuals and requires a lot strategizing and patience to win. On the face it might look a bit boring as it doesn’t involve a lot of movement on the part of the players but chess lovers would know that one wrong move could change the course of the entire match.
With all the sports gaining popularity all around, a ‘Chess Premier League’ is the need of the hour feels Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua, which would revive the interest of the masses in the game.
At an event at the Calcutta Sports Journalist’s Club on Thursday, the chess icon stressed on the need of starting a Chess League, inorder to regain the popularity of the sport.
He said, “The All India Chess Federation is planning to begin a Chess League. The franchise leagues of other sports have increased their popularity, like Kabaddi and Badminton and it has also made the sport attractive to it’s audience.”
“We are in talks with the Federation to start such type of a league to make the game of chess more attractive and also attract many aspiring stars to take up the game,” he added.
The youngest chess player to participate in the Indian National Championship also gave an insight as to why chess is not as popular as the other games.
Drawing comparisons of chess with other sports he said, “Since chess is a very technical game and because there is no body movement involved people find it hard to understand. The game’s tacticality makes it all the more difficult. People find it hard to understand the moves of the knight, the moves of the rooks and the bishops but in the outdoor games even if we don’t understand the technicality of the game, we get excited because there is a lot of body movement involved.”
“A boundary or a goal excites all of us and this combined with the entertainment mode of the leagues has made a variety of sports popular in India,” said the former national champion.
As a veteran in the sport, Barua promises to give every possible support to make it popular. He assured that the AICF is looking for sponsors to fund the game, in it’s endeavour to bring it a new Chess League which will revolutionize the game in the country.
He also defended Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, who hasn’t quite been his old self of late.
He said, “People criticise Anand for not being the World no. 1 in Chess but what they don’t realize is that Anand is a five- time world champion. He is the only one of two sport persons (the other being Mary Kom in Boxing) in the country to be a five time World Champion. He is still in the top 10 and has a very good chance to be a World Champion in the near future.”
While India continue to be a powerhouse in the world of chess, the introduction of a new chess tournament like the, ‘Chess Premier League’ will not only make the sport popular but also bring in a lot of sponsors into the game, which will in turn, inspire many to take up chess as a career and make the country proud.