MUMBAI: Cue great Mike Russell of England would be seen in action on a green baize in India after almost a decade and a half at the Dr D Y Patil Vidyapeeth IBSF World Billiards Championship that unfolds at Pune on August 20.
Russell, who now coaches in Qatar, last played in Ahmedabad in 1996 when he lost in the summit clash against Indian cue ace Geet Sethi.
The former nine-time world champion and Sethi loom as major hurdles in the aspirations of India's defending champion Pankaj Advani at the tournament which is carrying a total prize pool of USD 18,000, it was announced at a media conference last night.
Also in the fray in the championship, to be held at the PYC Gymkhana, which is split into point and time format to crown two separate champions, would be former two-time winner Peter Gilchrist of Singapore, an Englishman by birth.
The 150-up point-format event, described as the ODIs of the three-ball game by former world champion Michael Ferreira, will start on August 20 and conclude on 23 with 24 players in the fray split into four groups of six each for the preliminary phase.
This will be followed by the age-old Time format from the 24th to 28th in which 20 cueists participate.
The winners of both the formats would take home USD 5,600.
Advani and Sethi, who have qualified for the billiards event at the upcoming Asian Games in Guangzhou in November, will be fighting it out in both formats along with compatriots Devendra Joshi, Ashok Shandilya, B Bhaskar, Dhruv Sitwala and Alok Kumar.
Two other Indians, Rupesh Shah and Sourav Kothari would play only in the point format.
C Praput of Thailand, Kyaw Oo of Myanmar and England's Chris Shutt and Roxton Chapman are the other leading cueists who are taking part in the championship.
The winners are guaranteed a direct entry into the next world championship expected to take place in New Zealand.
Ferreira, president of the hosting association, Billiards and Snooker Association of Maharashtra, said there would be an exhibition 'Test' on August 24 between India and Rest of the World that offers winner-take-all prize money of USD 2,000.
India is to be represented by Advani, Sethi, Joshi and Shandilya while RoW team would be made up of Russell, Gilchrist, Praput and Oo.
The championship is going to witness top quality of billiards, according to Ferreira.
The presence of three South Koreans in the championship shows how serious they are to excel in the green baize game ahead of hosting the Asiad in 2014, he said.
Asked about the absence of Pakistan players, Ferreira said it may be due to the current political situation between the two countries.
Joshi, also in the organising committee, said in any case the cueists across the western border were more adept in snooker.
He also said the lure of a berth in the Asian Games team has been a big motivating factor for Sethi to come back into serious play after it seemed at one time he was about to quit the game.