Angad Veer Singh Bajwa: Meet shooting’s Virat Kohli

Indian shooting’s young talent picked his first serious senior medal at Kuwait in November and in a tough field of top shooters from UAE, Kuwait and Qatar almost snuck in an Indian quota hitting 118 in qualification (119 made the finals) at Delhi. He’s traded top spot with the other promising youngster Anant Naruka but is pulling away fast if his showing at Delhi (he shot two rounds of 25, 25 on Day 1) is anything to go by.

There is a supreme self belief and confidence that his seniors and coaches talk about – something that is pushing perceptions of skeet beyond being just another shooting event that trails rifle and other shotguns. “From Day 1, I’ve never had doubts that I can be very good at this. Even if technique’s not going perfect someday, you have to back yourself,” he says, adding, “Pressure’s good, I love the butterflies.”

Livid with himself after he allowed the thoughts of quota and top finish play with his mind, dropping one crucial last bird late in his final series, Angad says, “I’m disappointed. But I was sure I would be amongst the top shooters here, not just the Indians.”

At 21 and only 4 years into the sport, the Chandigarh boy’s room is known to resemble an armoury as he sleeps with a gun slung in the room’s corner – his father saying that the boy is obsessed with perfecting his technique.

He started out in air pistol (“guns were always there in the extended family”), got bored (“needed something more interesting”), went to Canada to study where he became the country’s youngest open champion in Vancouver at 18 (“But I couldn’t straddle studies and shooting, shooting was obviously more important”) and then returned home (“it was tough to leave University, but this is what I want right?”)

He’d cross the 120-barrier, shoot 242 / 250 at Nationals, and never look back, even as he was in a mighty hurry to transition from juniors to seniors. “He has the experience and knowledge in 3 years that I’ve got in 20,” Mairaj, his senior, says.

Mairaj of course would once be hounded – soon after he’d shot a good 120 – about why he always wore black shoes. “If he thinks it’s related to shooting, he’ll want to know. The sort of student who never stops asking teachers questions.”

The family would be pulled into the whirlwind soon enough. “We started knowing nothing,” says Gurpal, “and now everyone from the grandfather and grandmother, his mum, the drivers and domestics in the house chatter about skeet scores.” The family moved to Canada to support the boy, but are now stuck there, even as Angad’s gotten himself a range at Chandigarh – to help him train any time of the day 24X7.

“I am very inquisitive, but I’ve gone easy on Youtube and reading books because they started confusing me. I’ll know my own way and it’ll be best for me,” he says.

Ennio Falco rates the youngster highly, also because his work rate is tremendous. “Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps – they won young, and continued beyond the first success,” he says. None minds the brash pronouncements if they are going to push skeet into another orbit. In Falco, he also has the necessary tempering pickled wisdom.