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An
interview with Ashok Shandilya |
| --------Ashok
Shandilya--------- |
Strange as it may seem, a player of Ashok
Shandilya’s calibre is disillusioned with the status of the game of green baize in
the country. Shandilya’s reaction after winning the national crown at the Karnataka
State Billiards Association spoke volumes about what the players thought about the game of
cue sport in the country. Shandilya, in fact, won the senior billiards crown after a gap
of six years in a tough final that he has ever played. |
"Billiards and snooker are dying a slow death in India. There is absolutely no future
in the game if the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India doesn’t market the game
more aggressively," current national billiards champion Ashok Shandilya told Online
Bangalore in an exclusive interview.
His opponent Devendra Joshi was in his elements
and producing big breaks in every visit in the four-hour final. Shandilya also raised the
level of his game to produce equally big breaks to win the final by a narrow nine-point
margin. Shandilya was also disappointed by the meagre prize money of Rs 6,000 awarded by
the national federation. "I haven’t even recovered the money that I have spent to play in these championships. I
didn’t want to play this year, but my wife insisted that I do it for myself, if not
for anything else," Shandilya said.
The national billiards champion, however, was not much bothered by his prequarterfinal
loss to Devendra Joshi in the snooker championship. "I don’t like to give
excuses for my shortcomings. If Joshi beat me, full credit goes to him for playing a
brilliant game," he sportingly said
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Shandilya will not play in the Masters billiards tournament in Britain because he has no
sponsors. "If I spend money out of my own pocket to play in Britain there would be a
lot of pressure on me to perform. Besides there would have to be at least two tournaments
for me to recover the money." But, he wants to play in the World Billiards
Championships scheduled to be held in Thailand later this year. "If restrictions are
imposed preventing professional players from playing as they did last year, I intend to
resign from the professional circuit."
Coming to the topic of promoting the game in the country, he said, "My repeated pleas
to the BSFI to affiliate corporates like the Petroleum Sports Control Board and Air India
have fallen on deaf ears. If these organisations are affiliated they will give a big boost
to the game by sponsoring tournaments as well as employing players. The BSFI has been very
lackadaisical in promoting the game in the country."
The sad part is that billiards is the only game that has given India 14 world champions
and four medals in the Asian Games and there are still no sponsors to promote the players.
"I would earn more money as the 12th man in the Indian cricket team than I do now as
India’s top billiards player."
Shandilya has a job with the railways, but that income is not sufficient to make ends
meet. He does not get any aid from the railways to represent them in the nationals and he
intends to take this matter up with the concerned authorities. "If the Board of
Control for Cricket in India can look after the cricketers’ best interests why
can’t the BSFI do the same for us? To avail government aid to promote junior and
senior players, the BSFI will have to nominate them, which they very rarely do. Thus
whatever little help that can be got from the government agencies goes waste."
Continuing on the topic of sponsorship for the promotion of the game in the country, he
said, "Sponsorship and marketing may be equivalent to begging, but the BSFI should
not think twice about it if it helps to retain players’ interest in the sport."
Shandilya, an Arjuna award winner, loves billiards with a passion, but is sorry to sound
like mercenary about the game. "But I can’t help it. I need to earn a living and
it has to come from billiards."
The BSFI’s laid back attitude is not only with regard to snooker and billiards.
It’s only now that they are waking up to the reality that cue sports such as pool and
carom are gaining popularity. "They have decided to import six international size
pool tables, but it’s not even a patch compared to the infrastructure that billiards
associations have in India," Shandilya said.
The mushrooming of pool parlours in every nook and corner does not help the cause because
the pool tables are much smaller than the international size. "Indian players did not
fare well in pool at the Asian games because they lacked practice on international
standard tables which measure nine feet by four and half feet."
It would be a great loss to the country if top players like Shandilya begin to entertain
thoughts of quitting the game. The national federation will have to rejuvenate the
enthusiasm for cue sport in the country by attracting big sponsors and marketing the game
more meaningfully for the benefit of both, the sport and the players.
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