Bihar’s new bounce – The Hindu

Sahil Kumar, 16, is sweating it out at Patliputra Indoor Stadium, in Patna, Bihar. He wants to give it his all for the upcoming Khelo India Youth Games from May 4 to 15 at various cities in Bihar. Sahil is a SepakTakraw player, a sport that was first played in India in the 1980s, but is gaining popularity now. For the first time at the youth games, the players of SepakTakraw will compete for medals.

Last month, Bihar hosted the International SepakTakraw Federation (ISTAF) World Cup in Patna, with the men’s team winning gold in one event for the first time. Many like Sahil, whose parents are daily wage workers, are excited about the game that promises to offer them new opportunities. Thanks to the World Cup, Sahil and about 100 others play on a mat imported from Thailand, which costs around ₹40 lakh.

In SepakTakraw, players aim to get the rattan or synthetic mesh ball over the net, using the hand only to release the ball, after which head, knees, chest, feet and thighs are used to propel it. This involves agility and acrobatics.

“I have been playing this sport for the past seven years and now I see my future in this. The best part of SepakTakraw is that unlike other sports like cricket, it does not require much equipment. Everything is provided by the association (SepakTakraw Federation of India) and the Bihar government,” Sahil says. He is a feeder, who serves the ball to the striker.

High kick

Out of about 600 players in Bihar, currently six play at the international level. Bihar is now placed second at the national level, and will soon have an international academy on the lines of what Thailand has, says Raveendran Sankaran, the director general and CEO of the Bihar State Sports Authority (BSSA), an autonomous body registered in March 2023.

The sport was officially introduced in Bihar in 1999, and the first international players rose in 2001. In March 2024, the sport was approved by the Department of Personnel and Training, so sportspeople who represent India or Bihar can access government jobs through the reservation quota without going through an examination or interview. Now, more people are choosing it as a career option.

Sankaran says, “SepakTakraw is one of our priority games as it is part of the Asian Games and the probability of medal-winning prospects at this level for India and a Bihar player as part of the Indian team is high.”

Raveendran Sankaran, director-general and CEO of Bihar State Sports Authority.
| Photo Credit:
MOORTHY RV

At the Khelo India Youth Games, 18 players from Bihar will participate, out of which 15 will play in all four events: Regu (three players), Doubles (two players), Quad (four players), and Mixed (girls and boys on a team together).

Aarti Kumari, 16, who bagged the best player award in 22nd Junior National SepakTakraw Championship in Assam in 2018, says, “I have been playing SepakTakraw since 2017. I used to play this game in Coconut Park (in Kankarbagh, Patna), and was introduced to it by a friend who was a professional player.” She says her family supports her. “I dream of playing at the international level.”

She adds that every day, she practises for four to five hours at the same indoor stadium as Sahil, under the guidance of Bihar’s SepakTakraw head coach Pankaj Kumar Ranjan. Her father sells sattu (roasted gram flour) in the morning and eggs in the evening at a shop at Kankarbagh locality of Patna, the State capital. She lost her mother some years ago.

In 2023, the Bihar government launched a scheme called ‘Medal Lao Naukri Pao (Bring home a medal; get a job) under which A-grade (officer cadre) jobs are given directly to sportspeople winning medals at national and international levels. In 2024, 71 players were given appointment letters for government jobs in various departments without them having to go through an examination and interview.

Rashmi Kumari, 17, another player, says there are high chances of getting a job in the police force if she plays at the national and Asia level.

Slow and steady growth

“SepakTakraw is not well-known yet but new players are showing interest in it and we are getting new admissions on a regular basis. We have players who are studying in 6th and 7th standards and have played at the national level,” says Ranjan, who is also an office bearer with the All Bihar SepakTakraw Association (ABSA).

He says that in the 26th Sub-Junior National SepakTakraw Championship in March last year, Bihar’s sub-junior girls team won a bronze medal while the sub-junior boys team was the national runner-up. At the 27th Junior National SepakTakraw Championship, also in March 2024, Bihar’s boys’ team defeated Uttar Pradesh 2-0, winning the title of national champion.

“Earlier, States like Manipur, Maharashtra, Delhi, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh dominated the game,” Ranjan says. Most of the players are from Patna, West Champaran, Nalanda, Muzaffarpur, Katihar, and Saran.

Pankaj Kumar Ranjan, Bihar head coach, with SepakTakraw players.
| Photo Credit:
Amit Bhelari

Bijay Kumar Sharma, the secretary of ABSA, says most players are from financially weaker sections of society. In the early 2000s, when SepakTakraw had just been introduced to children, he remembers, “There were hardly any players in Bihar and we used to almost force boys to participate in the game. When the Bihar team went to Delhi for the first time, it was like a fun trip for the players because no one was serious about the game. Now, gradually, players are taking interest in it.”

Karunesh Kumar, one of the SepakTakraw players who represented India at the international level in 2003, says that Bihar has become an emerging State in terms of sports, particularly SepakTakraw. Karunesh, who is currently the sports officer at IIT Patna, as well as the treasurer of ABSA, says, “I played the sport for eight years but after a knee injury I had to quit it. When I started playing in 1999, there were not even 10 players. At the time, Ramakant Singh, who was the only player who had played at the international level, trained me at the Ganga Devi Mahila College.”

Looking ahead

When the men’s team won at the recent World Cup, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya extended theircongratulationsto the players for winning the gold medal by defeating Japan. “Congratulations to our contingent for displaying phenomenal sporting excellence at the SepakTakraw World Cup 2025! The contingent brings home 7 medals. The Men’s Regu team created history by bringing home India’s first Gold. This spectacular performance indicates a promising future for India in the global SepakTakraw arena,” Modi had said in the X post on March 26, 2025.

Bobby Kumar, 19, from Chhapra village, Saran district, on the national team since 2021, was a striker on the gold-medal-winning team at the World Cup. Bobby is at a training camp in Goa as part of the India team for the SepakTakraw Asian Cup 2025, set to take place from May 9 to May 18, 2025, in Kuala Lumpur.

Over a phone call, Bobby says there were challenges when he began playing: his parents were not happy, and not many others played so there was no ecosystem for the sport. “Like other children, I would play gully cricket with my friends but a senior who used to play SepakTakraw asked me to try this sport.”

Bobby hopes SepakTakraw is telecast on television like cricket and other sports are. “Cricket and its players have become famous because children continuously watch it on television, and parents want their children to become like Virat Kohli and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. If the same thing happens with this sport, it will become equally famous.”

Sports development

Bihar has gone through a rough patch in terms of sports. The last cricket World Cup match was held in Patna in February 1996 at Moin-ul-Haq stadium between Kenya and Zimbabwe. It had hit the headlines when the then Chief Minister Lalu Prasad had called in his chopper to dry the pitch after rainwater stagnated on it.

Sports was never a priority for the Bihar government until the BSSA came into being. After its formation, Bihar has begun to hold sports camps and meetings with sports associations, coaches, and district sports officials to further sports overall. Training sites have been selected at Patliputra Sports Complex for various sports. The work of reconstruction of the indoor stadium is also on.

A total of 18 players from Bihar are participating in SepakTakraw in the upcoming Khelo India Youth Games in May.
| Photo Credit:
Amit Bhelari

Sports in Bihar also got a boost after a separate Department of Sports was constituted by the State government in January 2024. Earlier, sport was part of the Art, Culture and Youth Affairs Department. The sports budget too has increased from ₹30 crore in 2022 to ₹780 crore in 2024. The government says that there is a talent scouting programme across 38,000 schools in Bihar. There are also scholarships, panchayat sports clubs and jobs on the cards.

Apart from its sports science lab, a coaches development programme and technical referee development programme have also come up in Bihar in the last two years. Bihar is also introducing this game in the Eklavya Residential Sports School.

Last year, Bihar hosted the Asian Women’s Champion Trophy for hockey in Rajgir, in which India won by defeating China. In 2025, Bihar is set to host a series of events, including the Khelo India Para Games, Women’s Kabaddi World Cup, and the Asia Rugby U-20 Sevens Championship. It is in this ecosystem that SepakTakraw rises.

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Edited by Sunalini Mathew