PAKISTAN is a one-sport nation, and has been for the better part of five decades. Given its sheer population, underachievement across all other sports is extremely stark. Hockey languishes outside of the Olympics. The men’s national team, with a decorated legacy, is currently ranked 16th in the world. Arshad Nadeem’s monumental achievement aside, track and field probably had its last competitive moment in the mid-1960s. Boxing and weightlifting are frequent victims of petty organisational politics.

Sports journalists point out a number of factors for this multi-decade trough. Highest on the list is the shambolic use of sporting associations and federations as a source of patronage and graft. The bo­­­dies mandated to promote and preserve their sport remain at the mercy of political and military appointments, with sanctity of tenure entirely un­­related to actual achievement. Exemplar cases in­­clude political appointments at the football federation, and of course, the three-starred gentleman who sat at the helm of the country’s national Oly­mpic Association for two full decades and oversaw four Olympics with a return of precisely zero medals.

But outside of the world of institutional atrophy and decay, something interesting is happening. Societal interest in sports outside of cricket appears to be growing rapidly. Much of this appearance is gleaned from anecdotes. For example, there are YouTube and Facebook channels solely dedicated to broadcasting live volleyball matches — with considerable crowd turnouts — in rural areas in Pakistan. There are others that........

© Dawn