The popularity of a sport is based on fans identifying with its heroes. I have never been fascinated by Formula One racing , but I know so many people who used to track it and also talk about it all the time. Now I am hearing a lot less of it. Is it because Michael Schumacher has retired, I wonder?

Likewise, back in the days when Prakash Padukone won the All-England badminton title, all of a sudden the sport became a big hit in India. Thereafter, it has been relegated to an occasional small column on the inside pages of the sports section.

During the era of Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert and Steffi Graf, tennis was extremely popular in India. And again during the days of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. But thereafter, its popularity dipped with people claiming it was on account of many other sports emerging to grab public interest.

However, we now find tennis returning to its old glory all over again, thanks to Roger Federer who is an amazing hero. A phenomenal success, the current world No.1 has rekindled interest in the sport.

Cricket in India has always had its share of heroes, including Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar. And it has never really dropped out of the popularity charts, irrespective of our win-loss record.

On the other hand, hockey lost its popularity once we started losing internationally and our heroes retired. At this time, we see a huge movement in the form of the Premier Hockey League being initiated to make the game popular again. However, Dhanraj Pillay - the last known hero of Indian hockey - seems to have disappeared and without him, the sport will not pick up.