How Pankaj Advani is leading Billiards towards much-awaited recognition

Pankaj Advani is also the first player to win both the Time and Points format in the IBSF World Billiards Championship.

Consistency defines him but not all of us know what he has done in the past six years. Pankaj Advani who won the title of IBSF World Billiards Championship has now emerged as the world champion for the 22^nd time. By defeating Myanmar’s Nae Thawe 6–2, the 34-year-old has made the country proud in this sport as well. Tough in a country like India where cue sports are not very popular, the players are coming out and winning medals so that these sports could get also get a grip in the country and more people join and follow various tournaments.

Winning medals has become Advani’s hobby. He has brought the world trophy home every year ever since returning from a professional stint in the UK in 2014. And in the short format, this is Advani’s fifth title from 2014.

What exactly are Cue Sports?

Many of us have just heard about Billiards as it belongs to the Britishers and the Indians started playing this game because the Britons introduced it to us when the British Army officers were stationed in India in the 19^th century. But as the sport evolved and the tournament started happening around the globe, the cue sport got divided into several categories.

Therefore, there is a total of six categories to cue sports:

• Billiards
• 6 Red Snooker
• 15 Red Snooker
• 8 Ball Pool
• 9 Ball Pool
• 10 Ball Pool

All the categories are played with a cue, it is just the difference between the number of balls, rules and size of the table and formats are varied from each other. But if a player is playing all the formats then he or she has to tweak the game every time in order to get perfect for that particular format, especially if you are switching from pool to snooker and vice-versa. And for Pankaj as well, he will have to shift to snooker immediately as he will be competing in the IBSF World Six-Red Snooker and the World Team Snooker Championships.

A record holder

Pankaj Advani has a bunch of records under his name. He is the youngest Indian snooker champion and this he clinched at the age of 17. Not just this, he is also the second cueist to win billiards and snooker amateur world titles. He has also succeeded to become the first player to win both the Time and Points format in the IBSF World Billiards Championship in Malta. He was also the recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2005-2006.

Pankaj Advani has been trained by former world number four Arvind Savur for ten years. When Advani was 10, his judgment for snooker was immediately picked up by Arvind Savur at the Karnataka State Billiards Association Hall. From a very young age, the player knew what he wanted to do in life.

The 34-year-old also has the medals of Indian Junior Billiards Championship of 2000, 2001 and 2003. And this win made him the youngest player to win India Junior Snooker Championship.

In a country where the sports sector is majorly dominated by cricket, the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) is constantly engaged in promoting the game in the country by organizing and monitoring the various tournaments. After BSFI, many other states have now opened up a state-level association in order to take the game to the smalls towns and cities as well. And due to this, BSFI is successful in producing and grooming some of the great Billiards players like Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira, Geet Sethi and now the latest sensation Pankaj Advani.

Snooker, a recreational activity?

Of course, it is! We all have seen a pool table at various offices, pubs, clubs where people simply consider it as a form of recreational activity and get over with it once they step out of that place. That is why lesser attention is paid toward this game, unlike cricket and badminton. In order to promote Snooker as a sport, it is important to telecast the important tournaments like World Championships on television so that the game can reach out to more and more people in the country. Also, there is a need to commercialize the sport a bit by giving it an IPL style makeover.

To overcome the lack of promotion for the game, Pankaj Advani has also set up Cue Schools in Bengaluru where children are specifically trained by experts for the game. The schools also give the chance to these players to participate in the tournament held across the nation. Though many schools are more inclined towards games like cricket and football, setting up a school especially for Cue Sports will help these children learn a new sport altogether.

To point out one more very important thing about Cue Sports is that it is not included in the Quadrennial events. That means the sport does not have any exposure to events like Commonwealth Games, the Olympics, Asian Games to name a few. And the players around the world keep on making pleas to have the inclusion of the Cue Sports in Quadrennial events. If cricket is considered to be included in the Olympics, then why not Snooker and Billiards? The game has a shorter time span compared to cricket and does not require maintenance of a huge ground.

India is surely doing an impressive job in this game and needs to be recognized in these prestigious tournaments as well so that more people will know about it and thus it will get a good fan following. Hopefully, the game will get a platform that it deserves soon.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are the personal views of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)