From Sepak takraw to Lacrosse: Five fascinating but little known sports

Many unique sports not commonly played in India have their own fan base and avid followers in different parts of the world.

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The World Sports Encyclopedia lists more than 8,000 different sports and games, clubbed into a variety of categories on the basis of multiple parameters. India’s sporting culture is dominated by a select few sports like cricket, football, hockey, badminton, tennis, chess, table tennis and basketball, with cricket ruling the roost.

Some other sports, such as boxing, wrestling and motor sports also have a reasonable following, especially in specific parts of the country. Apart from these, there are a large number of sports, some of which are even Olympic sports, which are little known to most Indians, even though there are teams representing the nation in some of these sports.

Here is a look at five such sports which are relatively unknown in the nation:

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is an extremely popular stick-and-ball team sport, and is one of the oldest sports in North America. The sport has even featured in the Summer Olympics in the 1904 and 1908 editions. The sport’s governing body, World Lacrosse, hosts the World Lacrosse Championship, the pinnacle event of the sport, every four years.

The sport is usually played in an outdoor lacrosse field, or in some cases in an indoor lacrosse rink. A lacrosse stick is used to carry, catch, pass and shoot the ball into the goal. The stick is unique, in the sense that it has a small basket attached at one end to carry the ball through the field. The ultimate objective, like other stick-and-ball sports, is to score more goals than your opponent and accumulate more points. Lacrosse is a contact sport, and players wear a variety of protective gear, such as helmets, gloves, shoulder pads etc. during the match.