CHENNAI: WHEN the Indian Premier League (IPL) opened doors for the world’s best cricketing talent, Indian cricketers were the biggest beneficiaries. With IPL campaigns lasting for around two months, the domestic players get to learn a lot from the international stars descending to the subcontinent. It has been the case ever since the first season kicked off in 2008.
Just like how cricketers have enjoyed playing and learning from international stars, the archers here have benefitted in the Archery Premier League – the first franchise-based league competition for the sport. Dhiraj Bommadevara, the current individual world champion in men's recurve archery, felt that the APL has helped him thanks to the ‘knowledge sharing.’
“I think the first and most important point that I feel in which the league is more good for each Indian athlete is the knowledge which is shared through the world number ones or world champions who are participating in our same team,” he told this daily. He also said with more time, the knowledge sharing becomes more broad. “Because in World Cups, we only get to see each other one or two days before the matches. But once they start we get into our zone and rhythm.
But here, I think from the first to the tenth and last day, we are having healthy conversations, sharing knowledge with each other. That has helped me a lot, be it conversations with compound archers or recurve archers,” the Asian Games silver medallist said.
One such international star that Dhiraj has benefitted out of is World No 2 compound archer from Netherlands Mike Schloesser. Both Dhiraj and Schloesser represent the Mighty Marathas this season. “Last season, I remember asking him how he maintains his composure in every tournament he plays because he takes part in a lot of them. The first thing he said was to ‘enjoy the tournament,’ and the second thing was that he takes tournaments his training sessions. I found them interesting,” he said.
“If he has four tournaments ahead, he will just prioritise each one of them and then he will make a plan according to that. These are small things which I would like to implement in my career,” the Vijayawada archer explained.
'First APL season chaotic but enjoyed it thoroughly'
The first season of the APL was ‘chaotic’ according to Dhiraj. With the 15-second shot-clock introduced, he felt archers initially found it difficult but enjoyed the process. “We didn't know how to manage the time and shoot within the given time. But I really enjoyed converting that chaos into good things. The conversation we have with each other with compound archers with whom we are shooting for the first time – it felt nice,” he said.
As APL season two reaches the business end, the Indian archers will hope to take as much as they can from their foreign counterparts and become better archers.
