MUMBAI: The franchise-based league “Cue Slam” may have only had a one-season innings in 2017, but ace cueist Pankaj Advani still sees a similar televised league as being of help in the growth of snooker and billiards in the country.
“See for any sport to become popular it has to be televised,” Advani, a 21-time World Champion, told PTI when asked whether there was a lack of knowledge about the game among the common people and that affected its popularity.
“There has to be enough opportunity for players to make a living out of it and to have sort of tournaments at big venues where people are invited to attend and witness sport at the highest level.
“But the main thing, the need of the hour, is to have a (franchise-based) league, which is televised and that is where I feel you (the media) should be asking this question to (Billiards and Snooker Federation of India secretary Devendra) Joshi…”.
“You need to ask them (the BSFI) what happened (about Cue Slam). I want to see the sport grow, which is why I am doing something with a friend in Bengaluru where I am taking the game to the schools,” he added to the newswire.
Quizzed whether there is enough talent to form teams for such a league, Advani answered in the affirmative.
“I think it is possible. If you have eight teams of five players each, it can be done. Let’s not forget, if we are doing a league, we are not going to have only Indian players but foreign players and then the quality automatically goes up. We have that many number of players to have 8 good teams,” he said.
About the league that happened in 2017, Advani said the initiative was good but the format could have been different.
He also said a lot of snooker and billiards players want to have an Indian tour and a suggestion in this regard has been made to the national federation.
Advani next will be playing the 150 Up World Billiards Championship, World 6 Reds and Team Snooker Championship 2019 which begins from September 9 in Myanmar and was optimistic of doing well in all the three formats.
