Pool Party

And money8217;s not all. Only insomniacs would have tuned in, well past midnight, recently to watch the live telecast of the match in Cardiff between Mukesh Rehani and Steve Davis. Those who did witness India8217;s greatest pool hour would have been struck by the glitz and glamour alongside the green baize. To use a current analogy, pool is Twenty20 to the Test match of billiards and the one-dayer of snooker see box. Rehani went to the World Championship as a rank outsider. The 41-year-old Western Railways senior clerk, an amateur, was the odd man out in the high-profile, glamorous world. Under the bright lights, 16 television cameras brought the action live to 89 countries with the boxing-style Master of Ceremonies shouting out the nicknames: Nugget, Hurricane, Django8230;

Sky Sports, who were telecasting the event, took Rehani to Cardiff Station for a promo shoot; playing on his railway connection, they called him the Delhi Express.

Back to that match against Davis, which he started as favourite. Rehani blames his defeat on inexperience. 8216;8216;When the MC announced my name first, implying I was the favourite, I turned to Davis and out of respect said, 8216;After you, sir8217;. And that was it. I was no longer the aggressive player I8217;d been till then.8217;8217;

Still, Rehani won 1,500, enough to buy a new table for his pool parlour in Delhi8217;s Rohini district. He had to borrow Rs. 30,000 from his colleagues to make the trip but now has no regrets because of the spin-offs for India8217;s pool fraternity. By breaking into the last 64, Rehani has secured for India an automatic 8216;quota8217; place in next year8217;s event.

In fact, many players in the country have already taken the cue from Rehani. And serious snooker players like Delhi8217;s Mannan Chandra, Rishab Thukral, Bhupender Singh and Amit Khan Sahib are willing to make the switch. 8216;8216;There are several talented 8216;timepass8217; players who can be lured into it to make a serious effort. We need more match-play events with incentives attached but what we have is just one national meet and a few other tournaments8217;8217;, one player said.

And, perhaps, a bit more money. There8217;s precious little at the moment, though S Chand 038; Co, who are conducting a snooker tournament with Rs 1.25 lakh as the winning prize money early next month, have also agreed in principle to conduct a pool tournament on a regular basis. The first of it may be held this November with 8216;8216;attractive prize money.8217;8217;

This, in fact, is what prompted Chandra to turn pro last year when he went to England. He qualified through the Asian ranks and made it to the Main Tour in snooker. 8216;8216;Mukesh has shown us the way. I am ready for it but proper atmosphere must be created first,8217;8217; says the Bharat Petroleum employee. Much work is needed on the sport, of course. To begin with, the players complain that the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India BSFI does not have a standard pool table. Cue wizard Geet Sethi agrees: 8216;8216;Most of the tables in the country are not according to official international specifications. We do have players, but there is a need for a national pool circuit on standard tables.8217;8217;

The BSFI, besides admitting all these problems, adds a few of its own. Over to vice-president Ravi Tandon. 8216;8216;The Sports Ministry considers all cue sports as one game and gives a grant of only Rs. 5 lakh. How can we conduct several tournaments with that kind of money?8217;8217;

A four-day tournament, he explains, costs anywhere between Rs. 4 lakh and Rs. 5 lakh since the organisers will have to foot the bill for the players8217; board and lodging.

In Delhi, there8217;s another problem: more than 60 per cent of the city8217;s 200-odd parlours shut down since 2000 after the government slapped an entertainment tax. The answer, says Rehani, is corporate sponsorship. 8216;8216;Considering that the game is so TV friendly, the corporates can be roped in to organise a local pool circuit.8217;8217; Tandon is thinking on similar lines. 8216;8216;I have already approached CII for corporate sponsorships and I expect a positive response from them,8217;8217; he says.

For the final word, over to Geet Sethi. So what would make our cueists click in pool? 8216;8216;We need a few big stars. If we have a real big champ or two, the sport can catch the imagination of the masses.8217;8217;

That8217;s where Rehani steps in.