Today was historic for Indian chess. Praggnanandhaa, known as Pragg currently ranked 23 in the world on live ratings, reached the final of the FIDE World Cup where he will face of with the former world champion and world no. 1, Magnus Carlsen. Indian chess has been a power house for past few years now with young talents like Gukesh (World no. 8), Arjun (World no. 30) joining the veterans Anand, Harikrishna, and Vidit in the live ratings. India now have 6 players (20%) among the 30 top chess players in the world, and are tied with Russia.
What makes this historic is that other than Anand, who even at 53 is in the top 10, no other Indian has reached a world cup final in the open section. By reaching the final Pragg automatically qualifies for the next cycle of the world chess championship (aka candidates). This gives him a shot to compete for the 2024 cycle of the world championship. Anand and Pragg both live in Chennai, and recent results are a proof that the Indian veteran has been guiding the budding Indian talents.
The bright spot for Indian chess is that there are several corporations who have been actively sponsoring events, such as the Global chess league that was sponsored by Tech. Mahindra. Other than cricket, few sports get the kind of sponsorship that is required for budding athletes to nurture their talent and take it to the next level. To reach the highest level, before you can start attracting attention of sponsors, requires a lot of investment and that can happen only through sponsorships. IPL is an excellent example of how big money can attract talent and create world class athletes. For some sports, leagues at grass root levels exist; the players however are required to fund themselves! And this leads to many talents dropping out between twelve and fourteen. Indian can be a power house of many sports such as soccer, chess, table tennis etc. provided corporations and government provide funding at the grass root levels to identify and grow the talent pool.
References:
Live Rating: https://2700chess.com/
Excellent coverage by Amruta and Sagar from Chessbase India: https://lnkd.in/dHHtqdvj