Kolkata, Feb 12: In her childhood, she used to watch her relatives trying to shoot birds through air gun. That was simply for fun.

She had sometimes asked her relatives for that air gun but denied. That was the first source of willingness for shooting from Koeli.

Today, Koeli has already set her footsteps in the field of Indian rifle shooting. In her maiden national championship in Pune Koeli scored 396.0 in the 10-meter air rifle event and qualified for the next national championship in spite of the fact that she has been practicing the game at Joydeep Karmakar Shooting Academy for only one year.

Koeli was married to Abhishek, the son of legendary cricket administrator late Jagmohan Dalmiya six years ago.

Speaking about her passion, Koeli said: “It was around in 1995-1996. Abhishek went to Mumbai to attend a meeting of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

"I accompanied him and there at the BCCI office after watching pictures of cricket World Cup winning Indian cricketers I again started getting excited.

"I started dreaming of wearing India jersey. Then again I choose rifle shooting and joined Joydeep Karmakar Shooting Academy."

Time will tell whether Koeli will ultimately be able to excel in the game. But the 30-year old shooter has already established her passion for the game.

She has built up a shooting range at her residence in Kolkata so that she can train more. She has also set her mind with such wisdom where she has extended financial support to highly talented but struggling rifle shooters.

Mehuli Ghosh is a specific example. Koeli added: “I decided to offer financial support to Mehuli after observing her talent and passion on the game.

"I feel we should think about those who despite being highly promising, are not getting any financial support."

Koeli's dream is to don India shirts in the 10-meter air rifle (she wants to start prone also). But at the same time, she is nurturing an invisible dream also.

Her dream is to create a self-identity inspite of the fact that she is a member of cricket family. Koeli, on the issue said: “I have the only regret that my legendary father-in-law could not watch that I am slowly converting myself as a professional rifle shooter. I started everything after he passed away."

OneIndia News