Namkum’s RK Anand lawn Bowls Green seems to be lucky for 22 players of the nation attending the first coaching camp for Commonwealth Games 2014 scheduled at Glasgow from July 23 to August 3. With every passing day players are observing swift improvement in their skills concerned to this game.
Significantly, the training output of 11 Jharkhand players out of this cadre are marking a remarkable change resulting to maximum possibility of their selection in the final India team for this sports event. The youngest player Shivani Kohli aged 16 years from New Delhi and senior most player Kamal Kumar Sharma aged 47 years from Kolkata said, “The 12 to 13 hours practice here is helping us in learning different strategies of the game. Our concentration and physical strength has increased.” Their words resembled with Assam’s Bima Borah who got two bronze medals in the 4th National Championship held December in Kolkata last year. “The ground is giving a tough competition among all of us,” she said.
State’s lovely Choubey who grabbed silver medal (singles) and gold medal (triples) in December’s national meet followed by a gold medal (mixed pairs) in Sime Darby Merdeka Asia Pacific lawn Bowling Championship 2013 said, “In India, Jharkhand records the maximum international medals in the lawn Bowl. Since 2009, we have won around 15 international and 20 national medals. This is definitely a blessing for our state.” Supporting Choubey, State’s Krishna Xalxo who bagged silver medals (pairs and fours) in Kolkata’s national meet mentioned, “The discipline of this camp is boosting confidence among us. My present practice is helping me in maintaining the performance with the camp time table.”
The players begin their day with Jogging, light exercises, breakfast and then practice from 9:30 am onwards. In afternoon, they get few minutes for lunch and then go back to practice. By the time its 4pm tea is served in few seconds and then they are back to practice till the sunset. Notably, this is for the first time that coaching for such an international sports meet is organized at Ranchi. National Coach of the team cum Jharkhand Athletics Association secretary Madhu Kant Pathak cited that the home turf training advantage might favour majority of Jharkhand players in the final teams for both men and women.
“After this camp, we will reduce the size to eight men and eight women for the remaining three coaching camps. The final team to be made probably two months before the meet will have six men and six women respectively. Jharkhand as always will contribute maximum bowlers,” Pathak said. Focusing on the reason of this benefit, senior players Devesh and Kamal said that the turf here is synthetic making it easy for the player to run the ball smoothly. “In Kolkata, we play on green grass wherein the base is hard for rolling the bowl. Synthetic turf is comparatively convenient,” said Devesh.
Apart, from this infrastructural advantage, the players shared woes on central government’s ignorance to this specific game. Kamal said, “Government of India must give incentives to our players. Coaches and Physiotherapists are needed. As you can see, there is only one Coach for this international game coaching and no permanent physiotherapist is deployed.” “Publicity is awaited for this game,” said State’s Farzana Khan who won several medals in the last National meet and in National lawn Bowls Championship 2012.
Other players of this camp are expecting Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) approval for the last camp of this coaching. Pathak said that if SAI does not sanction amount for the last camp then he is trying to conduct it on his own level in Hongkong.