THE TRANSFORMERS: VIRAT KOHLI AND SANJIV GOENKA

THERE IS A PARADIGM SHIFT LOOMING IN SUPPORT STRUCTURES FOR SPORTS IN INDIA. SHOULDN’T A NATION OF OVER ONE BILLION YIELD MORE SPORTS STARS ON THE WORLD STAGE? WHEN AN INDUSTRIALIST AND THE CAPTAIN OF THE INDIAN CRICKET TEAM ASK THESE CRITICAL QUESTIONS, HELLO! KNOWS NEW TOMORROWS ARE ON THE HORIZON

- SANGEETA WADHWANI

Please share with us the genesis of your association, how did the two of you first meet?

Sanjiv Goenka: “It was at one of the cricket grounds, a Pune-Bengaluru game.”

Virat Kohli: “Yes we got talking properly at this match in 2016, in Bengaluru. We had won that game and he met me after, sharing how much he enjoyed watching the game. From there on we started being in touch regularly.”

Mr Goenka, apart from managing the six billion dollar RPSG Group, you have dabbled in sports, be it cricket with the IPL team Rising Pune Supergiants or other sports like football, table tennis as well. Who came up with the concept of Indian Sports Honours?

SG: “I actually think we independently had the same idea. And when we compared notes, we realized that both of us had the same ideas. And then we said, let’s do it together.”

VK: “We actually met in London, at Mr Goenka’s house, and started exchanging ideas about what he wanted to do for sports. Our vision was pretty similar. The idea was to promote sports at a unified level, not just putting cricket above other sports. One thing we agreed on, was any sports fan would like to see all our sports stars under one roof. The planning started from there, for the Indian Sports Honours. Anyone who attended our event said, this for us, is a dream come true. We were both very proud of it.”

Would you also say there was a lot of mainstream interest in the state of sports infrastructure thanks to a host of movies – films like Dangal, Mary Kom, etc?