Darts In India

AIDA, the All India Darts Association was formed in 2002 with Mr Prasanta Saha as it’s general Secretary. West Bengal is one of the states where darts is most popular and tournaments are held regularly for both school children and Ladies. Sponsorship has been obtained for a National Championship from Haywards (Shaw Wallace Distilleries.)  With Mr. Saha’s leadership, India became a member of the World darts Association in 2004.

By the Spring of 2007, 17 of India’s 28 States had darts affiliations to the Calcutta based AIDA and competed in the national finals held in June with more than 10,000 players registered and up to 65% of these being under the age of 18. In fact India has a third of its 1 billion population aged less than 15 years old so perhaps this is not surprising.

The All India Darts Ranking Tournament which is held annually at Hyderabad, a popular darts playing city, introduced a Youth title for boys and girls in 2006 to encourage youngsters to take up the sport. Nausheen Sayed is the national girls youth champion and is the teenage daughter of two of India’s top players, husband and wife, Ashfaque and Ayesha Sayed who are dedicated to the sport of darts and have not missed a single days practice since they became hooked on the game. Ashfaque has been ranked India’s No 1 male player for some years and his wife Ayesha is India's no 2 women’s player.

Ashfaque and Ayesha are always trying to promote the game and regularly go into schools where they encourage all the students to throw some darts to experience the game first hand in the hopes that some of the youngsters will take up the game.

Vinod Sawlani is another leading Indian player who played darts on and off for about 13 years in Nigeria where his father was the National Champion there and was also instrumental in forming the All Nigeria Darts Federation. After returning to India, Vinod put aside his darts for five years until 2002, when he read about the ‘Western Zonals’ in the national darts competition and decided to enter. Vinod won the “Best Player of the Championship” award and was selected to represent the state of Maharashtra in the Nationals. It was as a result of entering this competition that he came into contact with Ashfaque and paired up with him to win the National Men’s Doubles Championship. Both Ashfaque and Vinod feel that they have a way to go though before they reach world standard. “We have a long road to traverse before we reach England one day!”

Having said that competitors from India have entered International tournaments like the Singapore Open, Pacific Masters , World Cup , the Asia Pacific Cup , Singapore Open, Malaysian Open and India has also hosted the 1st Indian-Pakistan friendship matches in India.

At the end of last year, Thursday 20th December, Ashfaque Sayed stepped onto the stage at the Alexandra Palace, London, and became the first ever darts player from India to represent his country in the World Darts Championship where he played against the Chinese Qualifier, Shi Yongsheng. Although Ashfaque lost, he had made history and gained India a place with recognition in world darts. (See Article) UK-based WINMAU Dartboard Company must also believe that both Ashfaque and India have a future in the world of darts because the day before the competition they secured a sponsorship deal with him. To see article on Ashfaque Click Here.