She's a tigress on the lanes, a motherly figure off it. Even as she prepares for the gruelling competition on a dark and gloomy Thursday evening last week at the National Bowling Championships in Bengaluru, Sabeena Saleem gently tells her Tamil Nadu teammate hunting for a Dolo that she has some in her kit and will give it to him in a bit. Sabeena Ma'am is the go-to granny for her team -- be it for advice on how to score the perfect ten or just kill a mild fever.
"They respect me, and are even afraid when I enter the alley," she says. With good reason. With 12 titles under her belt, and eyeing the 13th, in her forays at the nationals, she walks like a champion around the venue with shiny wooden lanes, white pins, bowling balls of different hues and fit, young people hoping to make their mark in a game which is slowly evolving from a time-pass, elite sport to hard-nosed competitions.
She had been runner-up 12 times, which made her a jaw-dropping finalist 24 times. Such a stranglehold on the top spot makes her one of the most inspiring sportspersons in recent times.
Two days later, she wrapped up her matters clinically, picking up her 13th title, which makes her eligible for the World Cup, whenever and wherever it is held. There's no clarity yet because things went all haywire during the pandemic and there's no timeline for it. She doesn't even know if she'll even get a chance to go because there are some factors beyond her control. If she does, it'll be her sixth representation for the country on the world stage.
She cuts a striking figure at the alley. Calm, confident and doesn't let age dampen her spirit. At 55, most grandmothers with a doting husband (who is with her at every tournament), two children (one of them her one-time rival at the alley) and two grandchildren would be content to fill their days with the laughter of kids and sweet memories of past glory. Not Sabeena. She wants to go on till her hurting knees will allow her.
"I was always interested in sports, always will be," she says, her soft voice rising above the hub-bub of excited bowlers. She'd play cricket at home ("I was a bowler") with her three brothers and live for that one day of games during the week at her Chennai schools. All that slid into a routine of home and hearth after marriage and children.
Until one day, her daughter pestered her, ‘Why don't you play, Ma?' at the bowling centre in Chennai where the family would occasionally go. It was a novel thing back in 1999, and she was bitten by the bug but held back by the fact that there was not a single woman lining up to bowl. She went ahead anyway, and the rest, as they say, is history.
In the early days, there weren't too many women with whom she could practise the fine art of letting the ball roll and curve and knock down the ten pins. There was only one solution, and she took it – play with the men. Give her a handicap, they said. No way, she told them, "I want to compete on equal terms." That's what perhaps toughened her body, steeled her nerves, improved her game and brought her to the pinnacle of women's bowling.
"It's an expensive sport, no doubt," she points out and is all praise for her husband who has facilitated her passage to victory. She buys her equipment overseas, mainly in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, and occasionally takes part in competitions there too. Her hijab (which she started wearing in 2006 after a pilgrimage to Mecca) doesn't attract much attention as many women there play wearing it. Here too, the bowling community is used to it by now. Her rivals have to contend with her fierce competitive spirit and can't afford to be distracted by her personal choices.
Her daughter was her rival at the highest level for a while before she got married and gave up the game. Now, Sabeena has to keep younger rivals from all over the country at bay to retain her title. She is aware her body can only take so much punishment (matches ending well past midnight, at times) and niggling injuries threatening to end her life on the lanes. "If it comes to that, I'll compete from a wheelchair," she says.
Would she like to move into a mentorship role given her vast experience? "Sure, if the federation would like it," she says.
Sabeena's journey as a bowler has been one of sheer chance. "I'd have been a regular homemaker if not for that turning point in Chennai," she says. But here she is, waiting for another shot at the World Cup. The last time she participated at this level was in 2019 and she finished in the top 24.
By all indicators, she'll be back next year. Maybe, the year after that too. Her younger rivals, like Sumathi Nallabantu of Andhra Pradesh who lost to her on Saturday, will have to pull something special out of their bowling bags to knock her off the perch. Until then, Sabeena Athica, as she's also known thanks to bureaucratic documentation, is all set to rule the roost.
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