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Hyderabad player shines in little-known sport
A 20-year-old woodball player, Adarsh Kandika is the only player from South Asia who has been selected for the National Woodball team from Hyderabad.
Hyderabad: A 20-year-old woodball player, Adarsh Kandika is the only player from South Asia who has been selected for the National Woodball team from Hyderabad. He has bought home silver and bronze medals in the earlier Woodball National Championships.
Internationally, he has taken part in Malaysian International championship and has also participated in the eighth World Cup held in Thailand. He has also been selected for the South Asian International Championship 2020 which will be held on 23-30 March in Pune, Maharashtra.
Woodball is a sport played with a wooden mallet and wooden balls that has lot of similarities to putting in golf. The objective of the sport is very simple, to strike the wooden balls through the gates.
Woodball was developed in Taiwan in 1990. The sport does not have any requirements on surface types, and can be played indoors or outdoors, on grass, sand or asphalt surfaces.
The ball used is 9.5cm in diameter and weighs 350 grams. The mallet used is about 90cm long with a bottle shaped head. The gate, consists of three bottle shaped blocks, with the ones at the ends a little longer than the middle.
The sport can be played in singles, doubles, or a team of 4-6 players format. There are two types of competitions conducted for the sport, which are:
♦ Stroke Competition - Total number of strokes are used to decide the winner
♦ Fairway Competition - Total number of fairways won is used to decide the winner.
A match is played for 12 or multiples of 12 fairways. A player or team, to complete the total number of fairways with the smallest number of strokes, or win the highest number of fairways, is the winner of the match.
International Woodball Federation (IWbf) is highest governing body of the sport which consist of national teams from 44 countries. IWbf conducts several international woodball tournaments all through the year.
Still an unknown game in India, Adarsh Kandika hopes to make the State proud at the national and international level.
Speaking to, Young Hans, Adarsh said, "My father, Anjaiah Kandika is a PT master who loves sports and introduced me to this game. I started playing Wood ball when I turned 17. My favorite player is Khem Raj. My aim is to win gold medal in Asian games." Apart from this game Adarsh is also preparing for Civil services.
"It is a mind game which requires a lot of strategy and concentration" says Adarsh who spends four hours practicing every day. He further said, "I don't want to stop myself in one particular arena.
I want to serve my nation in whichever way possible. I have also written a book on 'Anamika' which talks about Indian women's issues, religion psychology, etc. it going to be published this year."
After practicing, he spends his time volunteering with NGOs called team of mahatma and researching about topics like free education, women empowerment and farmer suicide.
