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Aiming to reach the goal

After a gap of two years, sports-loving denizens of Vijayawada witnessed a national event amidst high drama, both on and off court, reports J R Shridharan

BIG LEAP Putting their best foot forward for a goal Photo Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar

The five-day senior national netball championship held for the first time in Andhra Pradesh brought the game closer to many who had the privilege of knowing the intricacies of the less popular game. The previous mega event hosted by the city was national junior athletic championship in December 2004, in which over 34 states participated at the Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium.

To put in a simpler form, netball is a milder version of basketball, sans dribbling and body tackling. In fact, most of the rules and fouls of basketball are applicable to netball as well. Elaborating the rules, B. Sivaram, secretary, Krishna District Netball Association says: " "Seven players play the game and the onus of scoring the points rests on goal shooter and goal attacker. Wing attacker and wing defence make the passes and also tackle the rival forward. The player in the role of a centre is not allowed to enter the `D". The other positions are goalkeeper and goal defence who take care of the surging rival shooters inside the D."

Killer instinct

But the game is not all that easy, as the players need to exhibit extraordinary skills to gain control over the ball and pass it on to the goal shooter. "The goal scorer is given three seconds at the post to sink the ball. After securing the ball, the goal shooter can position himself/herself in a perfect posture to score a point. That is the reason why a majority of the goal shooters are tall and agile," says AP Netball Association secretary Someswara Rao. Though netball is a popular sport amongst Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand and yet relatively unknown in the world stage. That the sport is becoming increasingly popular in USA is something an average netball fan may find surprising.

Much to the delight of the netball administrators, the game was included in the Commonwealth Games for the first time in 1998, in Kuala Lumpur, where Australia, New Zealand and England took the honours. "Our main aim is to do well in the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held at New Delhi. We are grooming young talented players for the prestigious event," says N S Sharma, secretary, Netball Federation of India. In the Vijayawada championship, girls from Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh exhibited their on-court skills to the optimum extent and in the finals the coveted place went to the hard-working Chattisgarh girls.

The men's section witnessed many close matches and after a marathon tussle, the Uttar Pradesh men emerged supreme.

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