Bhatia savours ‘mud to mat’ journey
The taping on Ultimate Kho Kho coach Sumit Bhatia’s fingers is the talk of the town. What is adding to the mystery is how it is wrapped around the Telugu Yoddha head’s index finger and thumb.
“It is my style,” Bhatia would say. However, one of the Ultimate Kho Kho commentators cleared the air. Turns out Bhatia ji, as he is lovingly called by his colleagues, reserves the sanctum of his tapes for people he holds dear.
“Sometimes, it’s god’s name or even my wife’s. At times, I write ‘22 Yoddhas’. It is my lucky charm,” said the former Team India coach. “People have noticed this now but I have been doing this since the time I started as a coach with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) team,” he added.
Bhatia beams with pride for having contributed to the larger cause at stake in Pune — making the sport visible to the wider audience. “We’ve wanted such a league format for long. The players and the coaches are delighted with this new format. The Kho Kho Federation has succeeded in taking our sport from mud to mat,” Bhatia said. Despite a slew of changes, which include the reduction of the field length from 24 metres to 19 metres and the number of attacking players from nine to seven, Bhatia feels the sport has not lost its essence.