Although it was introduced a decade after football came to Kashmir, during the early 1900s, cricket is very popular among the youth of this region. The British played their part in promoting both these games to attract the crowd, which later on, turned into thousands of spectators at the Bakshi Stadium and the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium. But football and cricket was being played in mini grounds and maidan across the valley even before that.

Showkat Ahmad Masoodi, a 39-year-old star footballer here, has set an example not through his goal scoring abilities at Polo Ground, Srinagar, mind you, but for his dedication and aim to unite the talented youth of India-held Kashmir and involve them in more games in order to expand sports activity in this region while also exploring talent from other far-off areas. “I stand for football and cricket and all other games. The purpose is the same — to empower the youth,” says Masoodi. So as inflated footballs fly past goal posts, strokes from the willow find their way towards the boundary.

The Jammu and Kashmir Football Association (JKFA) in 1964 was introduced as a governing body for the game. It framed its constitution the same year that it was granted recognition by the J&K State Sports Council. There was a time when players were paid Rs300 for national level matches. This was discouraging for the J&K Football XI, which couldn’t do much and qualified for group stages only thrice in a Santosh Trophy. But it produced stars of the likes of defender Mehrajuddin Wadoo and midfielder Ashfaq Ahmad and many more. At the moment there are over a hundred football clubs in the valley.

A talented footballer, who stood as a mentor for many footballers in India-held Kashmir, moonlights as a leading manufacturer of cricket bats there

A 25-minute drive from Srinagar’s congested Batamaloo area is the bat-making unit. Past the street vendors shouting at the top of their voices soon after crossing the bridge, the dusty and dilapidated roads make our vehicle, and us inside it, shake. It is like this until we reach Jhelum Bridge. In their boats in the river fishermen throw in their nets. Turning our gaze the other way we get the beautiful view of a spacious piece of land fenced in by painted iron grills. That’s the historic Eidgah ground. There are young lads at the ground that has a long history of football. But they are playing cricket.

The only bat-manufacturing unit in the old city is also here, a five-minute walk from the eastern part of the Eidgah ground. The underground manufacturing unit is nestled in a residential area, past a bakery, past a shrine and through the narrow lanes. A bit of zigzagging takes you to a six-feet high iron gate. The blue plate nailed on the façade of the old-structure reads ‘MAS’ (Masoodi Arts and Sports). Some three thousand bats are produced here annually.

Masoodi, who has coached footballers at Eidgah, steps into a large sunken room with a big window here, where all the action is now. The game is on in the form of a mini assembly line, the workers work as a team for five to 10 hours a day making cricket bats.

I cough while climbing up the dusty stairs of the old structure. In another small room on the first floor, a portion of the wall is decorated with trophies, mementos and albums of Masoodi’s achievements during his 16-year long football career.

Masoodi started playing football at the age of seven. He was just 11 in 1987 when he joined Friends XI Jamalta. At 17 he joined Forest XI and by the time he turned 23 he took care of the bat-manufacturing unit in his ancestral house.

Masoodi used to come to the Eidgah ground from civil lines for practice. He joined one of the premiere football clubs Forest XI in 1990 following his star-studded performance while playing for his local club Friends XI Jamalta. Forest XI was formed in 1965 by Farooq Ahmad Mir, the Diego Maradona of India-occupied Kashmir, who played an important role in the profitable transformation of football here.

After retiring from playing active football, Masoodi went for an AFC ‘C’ license course in 2007. Working hard at the grassroots level he came up with the Jammu and Kashmir Football Academy at Eidgah, in 2008, which became an instant hit in the valley. Over 300 footballers have registered with it since then. Players receive daily training there in the evening with different camps being held from time to time.

“Many players from the club are playing for different departments in the state, which makes me proud. The aim for coming up with my own football academy was to train the players and produce excellent footballers and identify talent for which we require infrastructure,” Masoodi says.

Argentine ace football coach Juan Marcos Troia, a familiar name in football, spent six years in India-held Kashmir and started his own football academy to train the raw talent of the valley. Later, due to receiving death threats, he was forced to leave the area and his academy was closed. “The skilled Marcos was a tough coach. As his deputy I had learnt so many things,” recalls Masoodi.

Taking over as Forest XI’s coach in 2012, Masoodi is happy to report that under his tutelage the club won back-to-back Super Division League titles in just two years against the promising J&K Bank, which marks his excellence on the field as a keen observer and football coach.

Carrying the bat

But why would someone who has achieved so much in the field of football be manufacturing cricket bats? The state government has hardly been serious about the bat manufacturing industry — right from the beginning. The bat-manufacturing units in this region are dying a natural death. Still there are a few who have joined hands to save and revive this industry. Masoodi is one of them.

The bat-manufacturing unit was started by his father Peer Haji Ghulam Hassan Masoodi in 1996, and only after his death, the son took over its reins. But the business runs parallel with his soccer coaching.

In 2010, the 18-year-old emerging talent Sarfraz Naushad Khan, who played for Mumbai during his recent fine show in this year’s IPL, visited the Eidgah ground and the bat-making unit along with his father. Masoodi gifted him a bat from his assembly line. Similarly other sports persons and athletes visit here during their own regular team tours. “I was quite young when Sunil Gavaskar had also visited here during the 1980s,” Masoodi reminisces.

The owners of bat manufacturing units in India-held Kashmir are trying hard to breathe life back into this dying industry. The devastating floods of September 2014 that claimed 300 lives almost broke their backs. Flood waters washed away all the wood. The damage was beyond measure. Even the bat-making machinery in many active bat-manufacturing units across India-held Kashmir remained submerged for several weeks, which left them dysfunctional.

“The unprecedented floods affected hundreds of units leaving many shattered. We also stopped our work due to non-availability of the clefts of wood for a day or so. But I feel good that our bat unit is feeding five families for the past 16 years,” shares Masoodi.

The bat-manufacturing industry in India-held Kashmir is the third largest in the state and can expand its access to involve the unemployed youth of the region after tourism and horticulture, but it hasn’t happened as yet.

In 2014, the then chief minister of India-held Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, inaugurated the first ever synthetic turf at the TRC Polo Ground, a football stadium with a capacity of 16,000 spectators. The project cost over Rs45 million. Masoodi hopes for something similar for Eidgah ground as well. “The stadium should be renovated so that there would be possibility of organising international events here, too. It will go a long way in boosting morale of local players, who can then exhibit their talent on the premier platform,” opines Masoodi.

The Kashmir willow bat has made a name in cricket. It reached the international market decades ago. There are some 16,000 people involved in its trade, contributing to an average output of two hundred thousand bats annually.

India-held Kashmir has over 250 bat-manufacturing units and the steps involved in making a single bat takes nine to 10 months. There are some seven known places for producing bats here like Sangam, Bijbehara, Sethar, Pujteng, Charsoo, Mirzapour and Hallmullaha where after the floods, workers are putting up an effort to start work again. The planks are hewn, whittled, sawn, sanded and threaded until they reach the right shape. Handles and stickers for the bats are imported from Kolkata and Meerut, and even Singapore.

The bats are finished, packed and transported to national and international markets then. “In a wholesale market, the cost of tennis racket is around Rs250 to Rs400, whereas the seasonal bats cost Rs450 to Rs1,000,” says Masoodi.

The bat industry in India-held Kashmir adds over seven to 10 per cent to the India’s Gross Domestic Product. The Kashmir willow is termed as the second finest after the British willow. Processing and utilising bat-manufacturing units could help the country increase its productivity and bring respite to many producers directly and indirectly associated with the sports industry.

Traditionally known as ‘pod shaving’, the bat-manufacturing process was introduced in Kashmir by the British in 1900. The visitors found the Kashmir willow light and flexible for making durable clefts. The bat-making process takes off when the willows are felled, cut and split after being sliced into two-and-a-half feet long logs. These are then left out to dry for at least six months before being transported to bat-making units. Once dried, the logs are peeled by machine and turned into planks and later into 30-inch bat-sized pieces called ‘clefts’.

The finest of India-held Kashmir willow bats are sold at Rs7,000 to Rs8,000 in different parts of India, including Mumbai, Kerala, Chennai and Gujarat. But the workers in bat-manufacturing units here are paid Rs30 to Rs60 for shaping the blade of a bat. MAS, currently, the busiest bat-manufacturing unit has wood shaving all over the place. “We love the smell of wood shavings. It reminds us that we are a successful unit. And by the end of the day we can gather it to take home to burn for preparing and cooking food,” says one worker at the unit.

The writer is a freelance journalist and cricket blogger from India-held Kashmir.

Twitter: @TahirIbnManzoor

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, December 20th, 2015