Cue Slam heralds radical changes in the sport

Bengaluru, August 21: The inaugural Cue-Slam Indian Cue Masters League (ICML), which is currently underway at the Rajpath Club in Ahmedabad has divided opinion among the cue sports fraternity.

The franchise-based Cue Slam, which is meant to be the cricket's equivalent of Indian Premier League has five sides in it --Bengaluru Buddies, Chennai Strikers, Hyderabad Hustlers, Delhi Dons and Gujarat Kings and is being played on a round-robin cum knock-out format.

Stage set for Cue Slam

As part of radical changes introduced to make the sport visually more appealing, the players are wearing t-shirts instead of the traditional waist coats and bow ties and with television virtually dictating the format, they are also wearing collar mikes.

All these break from the stereotype image of a formal sport and no wonder mixed reactions has emerged from the aficionados and fans alike.

"It's something the connoisseurs of the game might not approve of. But to make it appealing to a wider audience, it's important to shake things up. I'm excited to wear a yellow t-shirt instead of the bow tie. It'll brighten things up and look good on television," feels multiple world champion Pankaj Advani, who is the marquee player of Chennai Strikers.

This kind of revolution has been tried out in different games like kabaddi, badminton and basketball and Gujarat Kings ace Sourav Kothari believes the concept is here to stay.
"The moment your sport comes on television, it just changes the whole dynamics. It's going to help a lot in changing the perception of people of snooker being a vibrant career option," said Kothari.

Billiards and Snooker Federation of India secretary S Balasubramaniam says Cue Slam was long due.

"India has been waiting for a league like this. I'm happy to see that it's taking off, that too with so many top players in the fray," said Balasubramaniam.

But India's first snooker pro Yasin Merchant had a different take on the subject.

"If you want to look at it in terms of gimmickry, it's good for the game. But people would rather prefer to watch a Geet Sethi making a 500 break in its pure form than something like this."

All said and done the IPL style Cue Slam is on and will conclude on August 25.