A 15-year-old student from Coonoor is all set to become the first snooker player from the Nilgiris, to play in an international tournament. Incidentally, snooker is said to have first been invented by a British military officer in the Nilgiris.
Sham Alwin, a class 10 student from Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Coonoor, is set to take part in the IBSF World Under-17 Snooker Championship 2023 to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from July 7.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Alwin, who is a huge fan of the English professional snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan, said that he started playing snooker at the age of 10, quickly rising up through the ranks and taking part in national and state-level tournaments. He is among eight youngsters from across India who will be taking part in the World Under-17 Championships.
Alwin’s father, Joseph Selva Kumar, a snooker coach at the Coonoor Club, helped develop his son’s game. He said that he was extremely proud that his son was representing India in an international tournament. Alwin has been taking coaching lessons online from renowned snooker coach N. Suryanarayanan, an official World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) overseas snooker coach.
Mr. Joseph Selva Kumar, who met the Nilgiris Collector in June along with Sham Alwin, said that as the sport of snooker was invented in the Nilgiris, it was of tremendous importance that the sport gains more popularity in the district. He said he hoped that Sham Alwin would be the first of many snooker players produced in the Nilgiris who go on to represent India in international tournaments.
Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC), in a note about how the sport of snooker was invented in the Nilgiris, said that it was an initiative of Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain (1856 – 1944), an officer in the British Indian Army and his friends. The rules of the game were formed at the Ootacamund Club, 140 years ago, in 1882. Apart from hockey it is the only game India has exported to the world. Snooker is now played throughout the world, he said.
