BENGALURU: Winning the king’s cup in the International Throwball Championship, the Indian men and women team have done all Indians proud. But it was a moment of pride especially for Karnataka and the state as the coaches and captains of both the teams are from the state. Organised by the Throwball Association of Thailand, it was held at Bangkok beween June 21 to June 24. There were three matches and both teams won all their games.
“The team played very well and we won all the three matches because of their hard work,” says N S Subramanya, manager of Indian Throwball Team. Both the team consists of 13 members each. The coach for women’s team was Aquib Mohammed and for men’s team it was Santhosh Kumar. The teams practiced for 15 days at the coaching camp in Bijapur and were a mixture of players from Haryana, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
The captains of the men team and women’s team were Sharana Kumar Nayak and Chandana Ravi, repsectively. Sharan has been playing throwball since 2004. He has played six nationals and four international tournaments. The practice sessions used to be for two hours each every morning and evening. “The practice sessions were fun with the players belonging to different states and age groups,” says Sharan.
Apart from playing Throwball, Sharan plays hockey at the state level. “One of the challenges I faced was playing Indo-Sri Lanka tournament 2016, both the team were tied and we almost thought that we are going to lose, but at last minute India won,”says Sharan. Sharan started playing during 2002, but suffered a chronic pain in the leg and he decided to switch to throw ball. “I was pretty good at the game and my teacher asked me to continue playing throwball. We however get no support from Karnataka Government and its our request to them to encourage us,”adds Sharan.
Chandana Ravi is a student in Mount Carmel College doing 2nd year BBA. She has so far played in four nationals and two international events. “I have been playing from the fifth grade. I found that I was quite good at the game and continued. For me every tournament in Bangkok was very challenging and being the captain is also always a huge repsponsibility,” says Chandana. Apart from throwball, Chandana also plays volleyball, basketball and is into athletes.