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BACK ISSUES | DECEMBER 2009 | CURRENT ISSUE
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Sports
Gp. Capt. Achchyut Kumar
The number 24 must be his lucky number. Born on July 24, 1985, at the age of 24 years, India's Padma Shri Pankaj Advani did something every billiards player dreams about; he won the World Professional Billiards Championship to become the only Indian to achieve the distinction. If coming events cast their shadows before, Pankaj's mastery over the green table top was well established when in 2005, he became the first and only player in the world to win the World Snooker Championship in both the versions, that is, the points format as well as the time format. The more remarkable part of the story is that in 2008, he repeated his performance in his hometown Bangalore to testify to the world that his earlier achievement was no flash in the pan.
Awards & Honours
In the international arena, Pankaj has yet another second to his name. After Malta's Paul Mifsud, he is only the second person in the world to win both the World Billiards as well as World Snooker titles. Demonstrating a furious form in the final of the World Billiards Championship 2009 at Leeds (U.K.), Pankaj made defending champion Mike Russell look more like a novice with his 2030-1253 win over his otherwise much-dreaded opponent.
I would like to believe that Pankaj has inherited his great fighting qualities from his mother, Kajal. The story of Pankaj's childhood is no fairy tale. Though he was born in Pune, it was at a time when his father was otherwise working in Kuwait. The family soon lost all its belongings in Kuwait during the Gulf War. What may sound only as some imagined tragic story, Pankaj was on a vacation in the U.S. with his parents and elder brother when Iraq invaded Kuwait and the family returned perforce to Bangalore after their vacation instead of their home in Kuwait. By the age of six, Pankaj had lost his father and it was the sole effort of their mother that saw the two boys through their childhood and adolescence.
It was since the age of ten that Pankaj started accompanying his elder brother Shree to snooker parlours. The snooker prodigy in him was sighted by the managing committee of the Karnataka Snooker & Billiards Association which was quick in giving Pankaj a Talent 'A' Membership. The membership meant that the young cueist could play as much as he wanted by paying just Rs 250/- every month. The Association could not have wagered for more as by the age of 12, Pankaj was the Karnataka Stage Junior Snooker Champion; a title that the teenaged Pankaj retained the following year.
Under the able tutelage of Arvind Savur, Pankaj romped home through every opposition that came his way. By 2005, the cue master seemed to gobble every title that came his way at the
junior and senior levels, not only in India but even outside the national frontiers, at the Asian level. No wonder, a grateful nation honoured him with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2005-06. The Karnataka government did their share by bestowing upon him the state's highest civilian award in 2007. The achievements of Pankaj Advani have been recognised nationwide with the Padma Shri being conferred on him this year.
Pankaj may not have the fan following of a Sachin Tendulkar or a Mahendra Singh Dhoni but in the years to come, the name of Pankaj Advani will outshine and outlive all the others in the field of Indian sports. An age of 24 years being just too young for the world of snooker and billiards, Pankaj has a long future in the game and the way he is going ahead he is sure to be immortalised as the insurmountable Donald Bradman or the great King Pele.