Volleyball, in the opinion of the boy’s volleyball team captain Sanchit Lakra, is a game of defence and setting, followed by offence. It revolves around two teams of seven players, who play a best-of three sets in order to secure the match. At any given point in time, only six players may be on the court – each position is numbered, and every player must cycle through these positions in the course of a match. These positions can be broadly classified into ‘spikers’ and ‘setters’, with most teams having four or five spikers and the remainder setters, as per the conventional playstyle of the game. The BITS-Pilani team favours a more offensive play-style, with a 5-1 spiker-setter strategy. The strategy of the game involves two lines of players, offence and defence – the defence slows down the ball for the offensive line to setup and attack with. Points are won when the ball touches the opponent’s side of the court. 

Players tend to be moderately specialized in their roles, with spikers and setters having different training routines. Defence players for example, do not have to practise jumping exercises, while attacking players do, as it forms a core part of their movements on court. The players’ diet is also tailored towards stamina, with a lot of protein and milk products being involved. The training regimen of the players also becomes more intense in the run-up to BOSM. An external coach is called to hone the players’ skills further, and practises take place in the morning as well as in the evening. The practice timings are fixed to cater to students who may have early morning tutorials or extra lectures in the evening. 

Trials for the team are held twice, once before BOSM, in which they look specifically for a small pool of  players who already have some amount of talent and playing knowledge. These players then only receive advanced training to become playing members of the BOSM team. The second set of recruitments happen afterwards, in which enthusiasts get an opportunity to learn to play from a basic level. As a rule, there are a small number of players who are truly good in volleyball, as it is a rather niche sport, which means that recruits either are very good players highly committed to the game, or alternatively people who tend to enjoy sports in general and can play most sports to some level, and prefer better known sports like football. Rohit Mandar and Siddharth are two players – one a psenti-semite and the other a new recruit, whom Sanchit felt are incredibly talented, maintaining that a list of talented players would in reality be the team list.

The coach this year is Mr. Ajay Shekhawat , with whom the team has worked before and achieved highly favourable results, both in BOSM and in outstation competitions, winning gold medals at the 2017 BOSM and at NIU Delhi in 2016. Their performance last year, where they lost to IIT Delhi for the bronze, was a great disappointment to the team, Sanchit said, but he is confident that they can definitely make it to the finals this year. The team has no rivals, as the colleges who participate keep changing, and the level of play varies from year to year as well. However, Wilfred College from Jaipur have been long time opponents. ‘IIT Delhi is also one of our fiercest competition,’ he said, ‘but they are also good friends off-court.’ 

The team is facing no problems whatsoever, and are extremely enthusiastic for BOSM, with nothing but praise for Mr. Shekhawat as well as the administration, who have ensured that oncourt lights stay on longer and that the fields are well maintained for the players’ use. ‘Being a captain hasn’t changed anything in the team for me,’ Sanchit felt, ‘only that I have more responsibility for the players now.’ 

Talking about himself, Sanchit said that he began playing volleyball in 11th grade. The enthusiasm his coach had for the sport was what lit a fire in him, and made this his passion. Despite this, he considers himself an average player, accepting no credit for his and his team’s achievements. He has no plans to continue playing the sport professionally. 

With such confidence, it is clear that the BITS-Pilani volleyball team is certainly aiming for a gold and looks poised to win it.