A Passage to India

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The snooker tour has now left Watford and moves to the warmer climbs of Kochi in India. Ironically India is the birthplace of snooker where the first ball was struck in a small hill station club in Ooti by a British soldier in the late 1800s.

Unfortunately snooker is not widely played in India with people preferring to play billiards. The main tour has seen two Indian players, Pankaj Advani and Adita Mehta, both originally billiards players but neither seemed to do very well on the tour. The Indian Ooen had to be cancelled several years ago due to flooding in the area and has never really got the media attention it deserves, being shown on Asian channels and streaming instead of mainstream, Eurosport coverage.

There is definitely a strong, potential market for snooker in India but the game needs to be widely publicised with what could be a massive audience due to the dense population of the country. China has already achieved this, hosting five tournaments in the season and snooker could if managed correctly be played acrosd the major cities of the country.

This week’s Indian Open will hopefully put snooker on the Asian map, attracting further growth of the sport in the country, finding major sponsors from its vast wealth and bringing new players to the main tour. This oasis can be created for snooker but has to be seized upon and not let this opportunity be missed.








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