It would not be amiss to declare that 2024 has been a creditable year indeed for Tamil Nadu as far as sports is concerned. Even as the 18-year-old Grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh cemented the city’s enviable status in Chess, a young Carrom player from Chennai brought international honour to the country last November. Khazima M Basha beat world champion Rashmi Kumari from Biharto bag the Women’s Singles title in the sixth Carrom World Cup tournament held in San Francisco, USA. The seventeen-year-old who studies at Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed College swept the competition, clinching Gold medals in all three categories – Singles, Doubles and Team.
Khazima says that she was drawn to Carrom at the age of six when she saw her brother making good progress as a player. “When my elder brother became the Junior National Champion, my father encouraged me to play and excel at the sport, too,” she revealed, adding that she has been training for twelve years. Khazima’s flair for Carrom saw her emerging as the Runner-up in the National Championships in 2013; she then went on to win the championship titles in the same tournament in 2017 and 2018. Twice, she won the Singles title in competitions conducted by the School Games Federation of India. In the Junior National Carrom championships, she has won the title once; attained the runner-up status once; and has led the Tamil Nadu team to victory twice.
Her performance bagged her a place on the state’s Senior team, which she led to title wins in the Senior Nationals not once, but twice. Khazima herself has clinched the Singles title once in the Senior Nationals. “I’ve won the Federation Cup championship title; in another stint in the same competition, I placed third,” said Khazima.
The star points out that a budding player becomes a ‘really big player’ only with sincere and regular practice. Khazima says that the competitions conducted by the School Games Federation of India were instrumental in fostering young Carrom talent and helped them gain the necessary exposure and confidence to excel in National competitions.
Khazima met Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on her return from the US. “He commended my performance and informed me that I would be awarded a big cash prize,” she said. The State Government presented her with Rs. 1 crore in recognition of her achievement in Carrom. Her teammates from Tamil Nadu who represented India at the tournament – Mithra (17) and Nagajothi (26) – were felicitated with Rs. 50 lakhs each. “This is the highest cash prize won by any Carrom player in the country,” beamed Khazima.
Though a popular sport in the city, Carrom has been starved of development in the past decade due to a lack of support by way of sponsorship. The city has only a few training centres that are run by those who love the game. It was at one of these that Khazima herself trained. According to her, the sport is in dire need of a financial boost. In fact, she made such an appeal to the Sports Minister during her meeting and requested that her Carrom training centre at Tondiarpet be elevated to a full-fledged academy. Khazima feels that with financial assistance, infrastructure and moral support, Chennai is sure to produce many more world champions. “This holds good for all States where Carrom is a tradition,” she pointed out.