aussiegnu: Discoveries in Sport

Being a keen sports observer only now days AM is always on the lookout for new sports to watch. During our time here we have discovered three worth commenting on. They are

AM will leave it up to you to discover video footage of these games but will offer some of his thoughts. The first two games are played with no equipment except the players and a marked court and the third is played with rackets and a small woollen ball. We saw all three games played in actual competition over the last two days at the Zone Sports.

Seeing them played in competition stirred all sorts of emotions in AM as he saw the 'real Indian parent' in action plus a magnificent performance by a 'cheating coach'.

Kho Kho

We first saw this being played by the girls of the hostel and all three age group teams of the school are made up exclusively by hostel girls. It is basically a tag and chase game and our girls are exceptional at it and AM loves it. You must be fit and be able to think strategically to be good at it. Basically it is a game of two halves with your team having to chase and catch for one and be chased in the other.

The strategies involved are great so watching is most enjoyable. Naturally it is played on dirt so blisters and gravel rash are predominant for the participants. AM likes it because when you get your strategies right you can completely frustrate the opposition.

Our Senior team was so dominant that in the final they chased first and caught all twelve girls on the opposition team then when they ran they used up all the allotted time with not one runner being caught.

Our Intermediate team was 'robbed' by the opposing cheating coach. We chased first and caught four, then they chased and also caught four. I have no idea what the tie breaker is as 'the cheat' engaged in an angry debate with the umpire saying that we only caught three. We all knew we caught four, his girls knew that four were caught, the score book (a piece of paper filled out by two independent scorers) confirmed that we caught four but his 15 minute tirade of shouting somehow convinced all umpires to award his team the match. Our girls were devastated and so was AM who told 'the cheat' so in his best Aussie accent.

Our poor teacher tried to engage in some sensible discussion referring to the score sheet but 'the cheat' was not letting any facts get in the way. I believe that in true Indian fashion the umpire just gave in to stop his outburst.

Kabaddi

AM had heard about this game in our first week here but could not understand it until yesterday when we witnessed our first game. It can be best described as a brutal version of 'murder ball' surrounded by a small scaffold of rules. It is great. AM saw girls playing it and it was vicious. Cannot possibly imagine what it would be like to witness a game involving grown men. We do not play it at Jessie Moses and even our hostel girls say it is too rough.

Basically it involves two teams of seven facing each other on a dirt (of course) court. One team sends a raider down the court who attempts to tag one of the seven opponents and get back to their half while the team of seven try to 'capture' the raider.

A few definitions to give you an idea:

Tag - means tag. This can be by touching, hitting, kicking, slapping etc
Capture - means bring the raider to ground by tackling them, grabbing their hair, scratching and generally involves the whole seven ending up on top of the raider inflicting as much pain as possible. Catching by the hair was a feature of the game AM witnessed.

You get a point for a tag and return and a point for a capture and people are eliminated as they are tagged or captured and it is also played to a time limit.

It is simple but there is also a lot of strategy involved and was very enjoyable to watch especially as the seven 'capture' girls climbed off the poor girl they had nearly trampled to death, dusted her off, all smiled and returned to their lines to try again.

Ball Badminton

You might wonder how this fits in with the other two sports. AM would like to state quite categorically that it does not fit at all.

We went today to the Ball Badminton. Our girls, being last year's champions had a first round bye. It was a three team competition (because only three appeared) so a first round bye means that you are playing in the grand final later in the day - good start.

We settled in to watch the game to see who our opposition were. After 1.5 hours had elapsed AM suggested to IW that they should do something exciting like go to the dentist and get some teeth pulled without any anaesthetic.

It was terrible - mainly because the girls were not very good. The game dragged on to three sets and 2 hours and ten minutes. To give them a rest before the grand final our Junior team played another team.

Ball Badminton is best of three sets with each set the first to 29 points. Five players in each team. When you serve if you win the point you keep serving. If you lose the serve passes to your number 2 player and proceeds until all 5 players have lost a serve. You can only win points when you are serving so all the time the opposition is winning points on your serve they get no points until they have won on all five players then they get to win the right to serve and win points. Understand?

Our Juniors lost the toss so received - with no chance of winning a point until all five opposition players had served. AM settled back to 'enjoy' the spectacle. Well wham bam and five serves occurred and we won all five and with it the serve and the score still nil all.

Our player number one served, it was quite a spectacle, 29 serves, about 10 minutes, we won 29 points and the first set was over. Unfortunately the opposition refused to play the second set and so conceded the game.

So with about 20 minutes rest the poor opponents of the Seniors returned to play our girls. Now I want to say that our girls were very good and our opponents, at very best, were poor. Unfortunately for them we won the toss and elected to serve.

Did we mention that our girls were very very good. They did concede a couple of points along the way but won two sets to nil. It would be good to see two good teams play but at this point in time Ball Badminton has been crossed off AM's list of sports.

Ground Conditions

The story would not be complete without a comment and some pictures of the ground staff preparing the Ball Badminton court. Our bus arrived at about 9:00 am and we were shown where the game was to occur. From a distance it looked promising with two men marking out the boundary of the court with rope.

As we got nearer it seemed that the court was not very flat. AM's initial comment was that it looked more like a moto-cross venue - it was bad. AM has played on a lot of bad football fields in his youth but what we witnessed over the next thirty minutes was priceless.

As usual because our skin is white we have an inability to stand so chairs were found and positioned on the side line. We dutifully sat and watched the final stages of the line marking with the rope being secured by four tent pegs being banged in by rocks at the four corners of the court. Looked good, the tent pegs sticking up about four inches in the air might be a problem for players in Australia but in India all was OK.

As the clock crawled on to 10:00 am we were assured that the game would start soon. Have I mentioned the undulations on the field - they are severe. One near us is so big it could be used to hide in and no one would ever find you. The ground is rough, uneven and of course dirt with a splattering of dead grass in places. Our girls are tough though so they will cope.

What happened next even made AM's jaw drop. All of a sudden a small Indian man appears with a crow-bar and starts digging. As he digs, four young school girls kneel at his feet, perilously close to the flailing crow-bar and start scratching in the holes that he is digging. AM goes for the camera to record this. The girls are actually pulling out large stones, half bricks, boulders etc from the holes being dug and carrying them to the side line. This is doing nothing for the already uneven field. AM claims he saw the girls pull a motor bike out of one of the holes but IW disputes this.

After fifteen minutes of digging and stamping another amazing thing happened. The girls started digging a hole in the dirt about 20 metres from the side line and transported that dirt and rock and sticks to the court and threw it randomly over the court. By 10:20 am the court was somehow declared fit for play and the start of the marathon Ball Badminton game mentioned above began.

Another small anecdote from the dullest game in the world. This occurred after the two teams had waited over an hour for the game to start, the court to be 'levelled" etc.

After the serving team won the first point and in doing so leaping to a commanding 1-0 lead, one of their girls raced to the umpire for a conversation. All of a sudden the game is stopped and off she races across the paddock. We see her stop where their team bags were about 200 metres from where the game is. AM grabs his binoculars and sees that from her bag she has pulled a white skirt. She then asks a question to someone standing nearby who points to a building even further away.

She emerges a few minutes later with her white skirt on and runs back to the game and it resumes. We have no idea why this was important as the rest of the team are clad in skirts, track suit bottoms, shorts etc all of different colours but she for some reason wanted to have her white skirt on to look the part.

AM had a serious memory flashback to a conversation he had with his father some 51 years ago. On a Friday night in the Wallis household during football season you sat and cleaned your boots, put clean, starched, white laces in them and packed your bag making sure that everything was there that you needed for the game.

As a six year old AM asked why it was necessary to have everything clean. The reply was a swift, even if you cannot play football you can at least look like a footballer - you will fool some of the opposition. AM does not know if this was true for this girl or why she decided to change after waiting for 1 1/2 hours while the ground was being "prepared".

Rocks removed from the field prior to start of play