Bengaluru, APR 23,
The ground near the boys’ hostel of the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bengaluru, on a Sunday evening, is occupied by players of three different ball games. On one end, the players use a tiny rubber ball — inescapable on most Indian grounds, gullies and maidans — and bats and makeshift wickets made of stones. The ones at the other end play with a bloated, round one — the protagonist of The Beautiful Game — with makeshift goalposts made of saucer cone running markers. The players in the middle, 12 of them, use a ball — an elongated, ellipsoidal one, used for rugby — which, one assumes, is not part of the country’s public imagination. One of the 12 players discredits the assumption. “Do you know that India has the third largest fan following for rugby worldwide?” he asks. The numbers support his claim. According to a survey published by Nielsen Sports in 2018, India has 25 million fans of the sport.
The man, Puneeth Krishnamurthy, knows because he has played rugby for India. He is also Rugby India’s (the national rugby body) development officer for Karnataka and the CEO of Rugby Karnataka. He still plays for his first team — Bengaluru Rugby Football Club (BRFC) — which he joined in 1999.
Game of expats
According to Rugby India, the sport made its first appearance in the country in 1871. A scratch match or two were played in Calcutta and Madras. Following this, rugby established itself in various parts of the country even as it lost its primacy to other sports before long.
While the sport lingered in a few places, it was largely dormant for a long time. For instance, when Chennai hosted its first match in the 19th century, rugby picked up in Bengaluru only in 1996, when a handful of expats started what is now BRFC at Mount Carmel Grounds in the city.
“When I joined BRFC, there were mostly expats playing the game,” says Puneeth, “Now, there are just a handful of expats.”
