Cuttack/Bhubaneswar
Cricket was tribal kid Rajendra Prasad Murmu’s first love. But he broke up with it when he fell in love at first sight with Gate Ball. And ever since, he has been hitting and scoring at national and international levels to earn applaud.
While practicing cricket at Bhubaneswar-based Kalinga Stadium in 2011, Rajendra, a Santhal from Tarana village in Mayurbhanj of Odisha, noticed some playing Gate Ball. Wowed at the ‘wonder’ game, he longed to learn its ropes. But nobody pushed him on. So he continued staring at seniors’ game with a voyeur’s craving.
His patience paid off, when seniors invited him into their band. In a flash he dived into their fold and got into the act. “Rajendra quickly learnt its ins and outs that led him into the Indian team,” BR Mishra, the treasurer of Indian Gate Ball Union, Bhubaneswar, tells The Indian Tribal.
WHAT IS GATE BALL?
Gate Ball is a team sport invented in Japan more than 75 years ago. It is a non-contact traditional sport played by anyone regardless of age and gender.
The game is played between two teams — each having five members. A team has to hit a ball in a specific manner to score points. “It’s a mind game, striking some similarity with billiards, while its strikes almost resemble golf’s. Yet it has its own distinct skills and strategies and that wooed me,” says Rajendra, technician at the Central Institute of Petrochemical Engineering and Technology (CIPET) in Balasore.
He covers 198 kilometers to rush for practice on Saturdays and Sundays in Bhubaneswar.
“Its stick costs about Rs. 3000 to Rs.5000 that was unaffordable for me then. My uncle, a railway employee, bought me one when he noticed my love for it,” he recalls.
HIS JOURNEY
His father passed away when he was a kid. He saw his mother shedding sweat and tears in the farm fields to rear her four children. Undaunted, he did his matriculation in 2003 and passed the Intermediate in 2005. But, thereafter, his study came to a grinding a halt under financial strains.
His study resumed in 2011 when he got into CIPET (Bhubaneswar) to do a diploma in plastics moulding with his uncle’s support. “I also did part-time job in a shopping mall,” reveals Rajendra.
Trained under coach Satish Prusty for about six months, he was slotted into the Mayurbhanj team to prove his mettle at the district level meet at Kalinga Stadium in 2011. He scored five points, a significant share of his team’s tally of 21 that catapulted Mayurbhanj to championship. He again contributed five points to Odisha’s 18 at 2014 State-level meet in Bhubaneswar where Odisha earned the champion’s tagline. Odisha replicated this feat in 2015 with 22 points that included Rajendra’s five.
However, Odisha slid to the third position at the 2017 Nationals in Bhubaneswar, where he scored three points. He paved his way into the national team in 2018 to make his international debut in Taiwan. Here India scored 14 to be adjudged fourth. But Rajendra’s five impressed the sports buffs there.
His score slid to two at International-2019 in Indonesia, but India with 18 ended up as runners-up. He bounced back with vengeance at International-2023 in Bangkok to score five with India bagging 21 points to emerge champion.
“Rajendra may falter sometimes, but he mostly packs a punch to his strokes with requisite force,” says his coach and captain Prusty.
