Shyam Shroff had the finest snooker brain :: Sethi

The fine display of youngsters like Aditya Mehta, Lucky Vatnani, Hasan Badami, Sourav Kothari would have won the approval of Shyam Shroff, 7-times snooker national champ in whose memory the Khar Gymkhana-Shyam Shroff Memorial Open Invitation Snooker Tournament is being held at what was once called the CCI of the suburbs.

Aditya Mehta, who sparkled at the recent Asians trials at Shillong beating Pankaj Advani 4-0 with a break of 124, had a break of 97 while beating Railways’ Faizal Khan of Railways 3-0 on Wednesday. Vatnani all but beat Yasin Merchant who had to fight indifferent cueing while winning 3-2. Hasan Badami, Islam Gymkhana lad who had sparkled at the recent Yasin Merchant Doubles with a break of 93, had his moments against Manan Chandra who prevailed 3-0. Kothari of PSPB beat Mumbai's fancied Marzdi Kalyaniwala 3-1.

Yasin Merchant, recalling his mentor Shroff’s contribution said: “His passion rubbed off on me. Whenever we met the talk was only snooker.” No wonder when Yasin was having his darbar at the gymkhana first on the steps and later in the open patio, the talk was snooker. Yasin and Alok had an interesting argument over the wooden portion of the cushion. It was curved on Yasin’s table but flat on Alok’s. Yasin invited Aditya Mehta to practice at the Khar tables ahead of the Dubai Asians.

Septuagenarian Prakash Rajani, state level billiards champ from Khar, gave insights into the life of Shroff. “He was staying at Warden Road and played at Hindu Gymkhana. Then he switched to Park Club and later Khar Gymkhana. He was a tournament player. Tony Monteiro, his arch rival, would be tremendous in practice but in matches it was Shroff who delivered. That’s why Shyam won seven national titles. I would say Wilson Jones and Mike Ferreira were tournament players. It is important to play as well in matches as you play in practice,” said Rajani who belonged to a famous family of billiards players -- his brothers Ram, Santosh and Nandu all played the game and two of them Ram and Nandu also played cricket. Rajani said snooker was not big then, Shyam switched to snooker because he found Jones and Ferreira in his way. I personally remember what Shyam told me: “I first saw the game at Park Club and was mystified by the behaviour of the balls. If one did that this happened, if one didn’t do this, this didn’t happen. I decided to unravel this mystique and master the behaviour of the ball, that urge took me far.” You won’t know how far Shyam, close to the semi-final spot of the world event, and even to the US to play carom (pocket-less) billiards which was a rage in the 60s. Unfortunately, the standards were so high Shroff and his friend struggled to make a break of 12 when the highest break was 36.

Shrikant Sathe, a Khar Gymkhana member, said: “He would practice snookers off several cushions till he got it right, that was his precision play.” I also remember that if Shroff and Monteiro needed 30 snookers, they would give that many and come out and win. Strange but true. Khar Gymkhana have done well to revive the event and what’s more had a Shyam Shroff  benefit tournament when he was living inviting  David Taylor from UK to play. David and Yasin played a 17-fame final, the biggest in Indian history.

The final word has to come from our Great Geet Sethi who said about Shroff: “Shyam Shroff inarguably had the best ‘snooker brain’ of all the Indian snooker specialists. And few could match his solid temperament. So the combination of the two qualities made him into a major force in Indian snooker in the 60’s and 70’s. He was always gracious and gave back to the sport by way of training a lot of players. I guess Khar Gym was his second home and he lived just across from the club. I have very nice memories of him. He was a true gentleman”.

Pradeep Vijayakar