Following the sad demise of Shahlyla Baloch, media was abuzz about the incident, discussing how big a loss it was for the nation. While her death at such a young age is indeed a loss for the sport, it is unlikely that she will be forgotten in not-so-distant future. The primary reason for this is that she played a sport that has no infrastructure and government support. Similar cases have been witnessed with other sports personalities as well. The rise of Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi was without any institutional support. The Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) did not have the budget to support athletes participating in international events. Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan were the undisputed royalty of the game of squash, but after their retirement, the sport seemed to have vanished from the minds of the nation. Considering the deteriorating situation of the game, Jansher Khan decided to make a comeback to reinvigorate the passion of youth in the sport, but he failed. There are numerous examples from other sports including boxing, wrestling and weight-lifting. In this cricket-crazy nation, hockey became the main victim. A nation that introduced the Hockey World Cup has fallen so much behind that it failed to qualify for the World Cup as well as the Rio Olympics. A sport that has given the country numerous legends to be proud of has been one of the weak teams for years. While cricket is attributed as the main cause of loss of interest in other sports, successive governments’ negligence towards improvement in infrastructure as well as continued patronage of cricket has also resulted in a shift in priorities. Although the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has become an autonomous body with minimum interference of government, it too has been deprived of hosting matches at home due to the bad security situation. This has resulted in declining revenues for the PCB, and even the sport of cricket has not been able to improve at the grass-roots level. Pakistan has been fighting the war on terror for years now. The cost of war and other factors have resulted in stunting the economic growth of the country, which gave rise to unemployment. Many people without a job become easy victims of radicalisation. What government must realise is that the menace of terrorism cannot be eliminated by merely killing a few thousand people; it has to be rooted out of society at every level. And to stop the youth from falling into the trap of extremist organisations, the government will not only need to improve employment and education opportunities but will also need to focus on sports and other extra-curricular activities. Pakistan does not need to look any further than its eastern neighbour India. Although most sports other than cricket met almost the same fate in past as that in Pakistan, but in recent years, India has been working to reinvigorate passion in other sports. There is a great deal of emphasis on promotion of football, badminton, hockey, kabaddi and tennis, and investments are being made to improve the infrastructure for these sports. In Pakistan, another factor behind the lack of interest among the youth in pursuing careers in sports is that they do not see a stable future in the game. In countries like the USA and the UK, the sports infrastructure is so strong that it starts from the school level and goes until the university level. There are inter-varsity leagues with big money involved. The investment in infrastructure at the grass-roots levels not only grooms a player from the start, but it also gives him or her an opportunity to pursue the career in sports as they are as lucrative or more as any other high-paying job. The government needs to invest in the people. And although sports require big finances, at least the government can set a precedent for the private sector to invest in sports. The benefits are immense. And long-lasting. *