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Calicut Heroes play Bengaluru Torpedoes
“Kochi, show us the moves … the camera is coming to you.” The crowd at Regional Sports Centre, where the final leg of the Rupay Prime Volleyball League (PVL) is underway, is all pumped up. As the countdown to the crucial match between the Kochi Blue Spikers and the Mumbai Meteors begins, strobe lights, disco music, giant screens, and a hyper emcee create an electrifying ambience.
Kochi is fast emerging as a favoured destination to conduct high-powered sports events. Apart from PVL, the city has hosted the inaugural Indian National Basketball League (INBL) 5×5 format and the INBL 3×3 format and the ISL season openers. “Kerala has a very strong culture of sports and Kochi has a fantastic fan base for the game,” says Tuhin Mishra, MD, Baseline Ventures and founding partner of PVL. “The infrastructure is good and the Regional Sports Centre is compact and efficient.”
Former Volleyball player and Olympian Ci Michel
Place to unwind
Another reason is also Kochi’s popularity as a holiday destination. “The games are competitive and require complete focus and hard work. So, players, coaches, team managers are all under stress. Kochi is also a place to unwind,” says Tuhin, adding that the mix of tourism, relaxation, Ayurveda and sports works wonderfully. According to him, the volleyball world’s top management and members of the Federation International of Volleyball (FIVB), who are arriving for the finals on March 5 are excited about coming to God’s Own Country. “They are keen to explore Kerala. The Bengaluru team chose the houseboat experience to relax.”
Members of team Chennai Blitz on a houseboat trip
“Kerala is the hot bed for volleyball in India. The best players come from here. In every League there’s a Derby when two teams from the same State, clash…it is live energy,” says David Lee, American volleyball player and current coach of Bengaluru Torpedoes, who played for Kochi team in 2018, and for Kozhikode in 2012. Pankaj Sharma, who is from Himachal Pradesh but captains the Bengaluru team, agrees with David about the audience. “They buy tickets and come,” he says. “Everyone knows the game.” Both David and Pankaj are enjoying Kerala cuisine. While “it was toddy, spicy clams and beef” for the former, the latter makes a mention of the Kerala parotta.
Ci Michele, an Olympian and former American volleyball player, is impressed by the standards, the new short format and the city. “I have loved every minute of commenting in this League. It is being conducted professionally with physios, training facilities, good hotels. The players are central to this,” says Ci, who zeroed in on “all paneer preparations” to savour on her visit to Fort Kochi. Another commentator, Lewis Litt from England, concurs about the new format that “will revolutionize the sport.” “The format and the draft (selection process) make it a level playing field,” he says. A Londoner, Lewitt is familiar with Indian curry but enjoyed the “variations” and found the backwaters “magical.”
Professional game
Commentators-Ci Michel, Lewie Lett, Atish Thukral, Manish Batavia and Sunil Taneja- at the finals of Prime Volleyball League, 2023 on a boat trip in Alappuzha
From Tamil Nadu, Jerome Vineeth is the attacker with Calicut Heroes. He finds Kerala’s “volleyball craze” mind boggling. “They are volleyball mad” he says, adding that 900 fans turned up for a match in Bengaluru when Calicut was playing. “They came from 700 km away.” He mentions the high TRPs and Tuhin agrees that “Kerala is showing great numbers.”
Despite all this, David feels that “an overall volleyball culture is missing” and that the “just attack” style is archaic. But, he says, the PVL has a role to play in showcasing Indian volleyball to the world
Commentator Atish Thukaral
Through the hoops
Kochi also played host to the INBL and Rana Thaliath, Secretary, District Basketball Association, and co-ordinator of the INBL, recalls, “We hosted 196 teams with 750 players in the first edition (the 3X3 format), coordinating their stay, practice sessions, schedules, the matches and so on. We conducted it at Don Bosco in Vennala and pooled our funds to make it successful. The event’s smooth execution was noticed and Kochi was chosen to host the regular 5×5 format in October 2022.”
He also points out that Kochi, which has now built a reputation for such events, cannot rest on just one Regional Sports Centre. Though the stadium has recently added sky courts for badminton, renovated all 20 rooms and redone the wooden playing surfaces at a cost of Rs 60 lakh, “we need more courts, playgrounds and such facilities. The stadium coming up at CUSAT will help us host bigger and high-profile events like the PVL.”
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