Karnataka - Mangalore   

Srinath bats strongly for sports medicine

— Photo: R. Eswarraj

New facility: Javagal Srinath takes a look at the plan of the proposed sports complex of Manipal University in Mangalore on Wednesday.

MANGALORE: He is no stranger to injury, some of which threatened his career even before it took off.

Therefore it made perfect sense when “Mysore Express” Javagal Srinath made a passionate plea to the authorities of Manipal University to look seriously at starting a full time course in sports medicine here on Wednesday. The former Indian fast bowler said that sports should become a subject in the school curriculum.

Mr. Srinath, who laid the foundation stone for modern sports complex being constructed by the university for its Mangalore campus at Kaprigudda here, said: “Our economy does not allow a person to take sports, including cricket, as a profession. There is a lot of risk in taking cricket as a profession. I certainly would not advise my son to take cricket for a living,” he said. “Sports injuries (in India) are career threatening,” he said.

Exhorting Manipal University to start a full-fledged course in sports medicine, Mr. Srinath said: “Sports needs to be a subject right from the primary school up to the university level. It is not about going and playing in the ground for 45 minutes each day. Students should learn it as any other subject, and pass an examination. Autonomous bodies have all the scope to implement such requirements easily.” Referring to shoulder joint dislocation injury he sustained in the mid-90s, which threatened to cut short his career, he said it was mainly because of his contacts that he could get the best sports medicine expert in the world — Mark Ferguson from South Africa — to treat him. “A similar injury to a lesser athlete would have ended his career.” Sports medicine will emerge as a major business proposition in the future, he observed.

H.S. Ballal, Pro-Chancellor of Manipal University, said steps have been initiated to start a full-fledged postgraduate course in sports medicine on its Manipal campus. “We are negotiating with New South Wales University in this regard,” he said. “In addition, we will utilise the services of our sports medicine expert at our corporate hospital in Bangalore for consultancy at the KMC Hospital at Ambedkar Circle soon,” he added.

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