A youngster plays a game of gateball. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, July 14: Like Kaka or Messi, a group of professionals play ball in the capital every evening. They, too, are among the best in their circuit. But theirs is a game with a difference. A blend of golf and croquet, it is called gateball.

Not many know that these spirited individuals have been representing India at various international forums for the past few years and have been winning laurels for the country playing gateball. Meet the members of the Indian Gateball Union, a motley group of doctors, engineers, businessmen, corporate executives and students. They assemble on a courtyard at Satyanagar with strange looking red and white balls to play the unusual game.

The game teed off in Japan in 1947 and was subsequently picked up by South Korea, Brazil, China and the US. It reached the Indian soil in 2003, after a Japanese team introduced the game to some young players in Delhi.

“Oriya players did extremely well in a couple of tournaments after the game was introduced in India. And now Orissa dominates Indian gateball. The players, after winning at the national and international level, took the responsibility to develop the game in India. Thus formed the Indian Gateball Union in 2007 with its headquarters at Bhubaneswar,” said the president of the Indian Gateball Union, Dwaipayan Pattnaik.

After the inception of the union, the gateball players have been travelling across the globe to participate in international tournaments. The Indian Gateball Union has represented India in the World Games, 2009 at Kaohsiung in Taiwan, the international championship at Shanghai in China, the Asian Cities Gateball Championship at Hong kong and the Macau China Gateball Association Championship.

The Indian Gateball Union members with their trophy. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

A team of the union recently clinched the third place in the Australian Open International Gateball Tournament at Broadwater in Queensland. The five-member team had four Oriya players and a player from Bengal.

At present, the union has 250 members from across the nation. Of them, 55 are from Orissa. The rest are from Bengal, Harayana , Himachal Pradesh , Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh .

“This game requires the skill of a billiards player and the strategy of a chess player. We practice every evening from 7 pm. It goes on for around three hours. Since the game has not been accepted as a competitive sport and is often regarded as a leisure sport, we hardly get any sponsor. We have been funding the game all by ourselves,” said Sanjay Pattnaik, the secretary of the union.

“Gateball is neither age specific nor gender specific. A team of five players can include women, teenagers and elderly people. The game can become a favourite pastime for the senior citizens in India and at least five million players can be created in India within a decade. We aspire to play outstandingly at the World Game 2013 and at the Gateball World Cup in 2014,” said Pattnaik.

“The game can make a significant contribution to foster international friendship, transcending national borders and cultural differences,” added Pattnaik.

As of now, the union is training students from different schools with an eye on the next world junior meet. The Indian Gateball Union members said several technical institutions and schools have also shown interest to join in.

Gateball is played on 20x15m rectangular grass courts. Each court has three gates and a goal pole. The game is played between two teams (red and white) having five players. Each player has a numbered ball corresponding to playing order. The balls with odd numbers are red and the even-numbered balls are white. Teams score a point for hitting each ball through a gate and two for hitting the goal pole. A game of gateball lasts for 30 minutes. The team scoring maximum points at the end of a game is declared the winner.