AJAI MASAND

PALEMBANG: Before you stop your child from playing video games or ‘shooting games’, which test a player’s speed and reaction time, be warned. The kid might just emerge as the country’s top shotgun shooter, with the right kind of guidance and training.

Indian senior team’s shotgun coach Mansher Singh says he has never stopped his wards, many of them in their teens, from playing video games as they “reduce the reaction time” during actual competition.“but I always draw a line. I don’t want to see those gizmos after 10 pm. That’s the time my wards should be in bed,” says Mansher, whose trainees — trap shooter Lakshay Sheoran (19) and double trap marksman Shardul Vihan (15) — won silver medals at the 18th Asian Games, a unique achievement, considering that till Incheon 2014, only the old guards were holding centrestage in the discipline.

The other day when Vihan, from Meerut, said his favourite pastime was playing PUBG (Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, an online multiplayer game) after clinching silver in double trap, a few faces in the media group were left confused.

KILLER INSTINCT

That, perhaps, was the secret to his quick reaction time in competition and also the killer instinct. “In video games, he is constantly trying to beat someone, so he brings that mindset into competition. For him, it’s cool to beat someone and it’s not about money... that he’ll get a prize money of ~1-2 crore. He is too young to think about money,” says Mansher.

Mansher, who won t he national trap title more than a dozen times, is a recipient of the Arjuna Award and clinched the