ROLLBALL: 4th Asian Championship in Goa from December 16

Sports invented in India now heading towards new heights.

By Jaswant Claudius
(Senior Sports Journalist/Commentator)

Raipur: Since ancient times, man has been looking for entertainment after finishing his routine work. In this direction, the field of sports has always been given prominence by mankind.
A soldier, farmer, laborer or scientist, writer, all have been in search of some different kind of activity to pass time, refresh the mind or for entertainment after the completion of the day’s work. Sports has been given priority in this. The result of this is that today at least 800 such games are played in more than 225 countries of the world, which have rules. Many games have been discovered by man with ball and hand on water, sky and earth and which are being played. There was a time when volleyball, basketball, waterpolo, handball etc. were the main games played in ball and hand games but the change in time and man’s desire for entertainment gave birth to many attractive games. When the time came for running with skates tied to the feet, the competition of stacking started but the matter did not stop here. There was no dearth of talent and inventors in India too. The proof of which is that some games are still accepted to have originated in India. Prominent among them are chess, fencing, wrestling, swimming, pachisa, cards, kabaddi, kho-kho, chariot race, snakes and ladders etc. In the modern era, some people of India kept trying to discover new games and finally Raju Dabhade, who lived near Pune and was a physical education teacher, used to distribute newspapers in the houses of the urban area through skating since around 1999. He invented the game of rollball with the help of ball and stacking. Raju Dabhade was a true patriot and considered sports an important part of human life. When he was teaching skating to his students, the players practising in the adjacent basketball court dropped the ball and the ball came to Raju, who by staking sent it back to the basketball court. This happened many times and finally Raju was forced to think why a new game cannot be made by combining skating and ball? Then what, due to Raju Dabhade’s passion, dedication, and commitment, a new game which he named Rollball was born from 2003 to 2005. Actually this game is a combination of handball, throwball, skating, basketball. By 2005, due to the tireless efforts of Raju Dabhade and his colleagues, the rules of this game were ready. In this way, in the 21st century, India presented a new game to the world.
The game of Rollball can be played both outdoors and indoors on a hard surface and the game is played at a very fast pace, so today Rollball has become one of the fastest games in the world. The attraction of this game is increasing rapidly among today’s youth. Due to which this game has spread to almost all the states and union territories of India. This game invented in India has now reached all the continents of the world and the national association of this game has been recognized in 60 to 65 countries. So far 6 World Cups and three Asia Cups of Rollball have been completed. Seeing its popularity, all the continental associations have been recognized and now efforts are on to get the game of Rollball recognized by the International Olympic Association. The fourth Asian Championship is being organized in Goa from 16 to 19 December 2024. In this way, the hard work of a true Indian, simple man Raju Dabhade
is paying off and the popularity of Rollball is continuously increasing.