Gone are the days of the allrounder I remember my grandfather telling me he played football and cricket for Trinidad I believe he was on the bench for the national football team but never played but he also played cricket my question to you guys is why we had so much sportsmen back in the day that played two and three different sports for the national. is it a good thing for our sportsmen and women to stick to one sport. and how many of you the forumies played more that one sport .
There are still individuals who have enough talent and can develop enough technical ability to play multiple sports, even though I believe it is far more difficult to do so given the way most sports have evolved over time.
However, the biggest hindrance I think is the sports calendar. Football is a year round sport. There is no time for a youth to play cricket and football. When are you going to train for one vs. the other. How do you skip a few league matches to go and play a Test Series against Australia. No football team will sign you.
back in the day when sports were more 'amateurish' and the seasons more divided this was easier to achieve. But I think the calendar is one big hindrance, cuz in the US you still see a few college kids excelling in mulitple sports cuz the seasons are separate, so you can train, play and gain excellence in one sport without really sacrificing the other. This hardly exists outside US sports, although I remember some of the women's Swedish soccer players actually played pro-ice hockey as well.