Tragedy struck an already-troubled National Games after a young netball player passed away shortly after his side’s match on Monday morning. Nineteen-year-old Mayuresh Pawar was returning to the Games Village from the Agriculture College Indoor Stadium, where they had lost to Chandigarh in a league match, when he collapsed suddenly before losing consciousness.

Soon after the match, Pawar and a few of his teammates went swimming at a lake near the stadium and clicked selfies. Just when they were about to return, Pawar started bleeding profusely through the nose and felt dizzy. Frazzled, his teammates called the Games organisers and he was immediately taken to the Medical College hospital in an ambulance. However, he was pronounced dead on arrival by the doctors, Maharashtra Amateur Netball Association secretary Lalit Jiwani said.

Initial reports suggested he died because of cardiac arrest. However, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who also visited the hospital, tweeted it might be a case of drowning.

PTI, quoting local police said Pawar fell into the waters while trying to take photos at the Shamkumugham beach. The postmortem pointed to the possibility of drowning as there was the presence of water and sand in the youngster’s internal organs, the police said.

Pawar’s body will be flown to Mumbai on Tuesday morning and will then be taken to his village in Satara. There was a prayer ceremony held for him at the Games Village on Monday night.Hailing from Mayani, a tiny village near Satara, Pawar moved to Pune a year ago after he acquired admission in an engineering college. His father is a clerk at a bank in his village while his mother works as a farmer. His younger brother studies in Class XI.Pawar excelled in basketball and netball, playing both sports till recently. But for the past two years he had shifted focus solely to netball. A centre-forward, his reputation had grown by several folds in the last 12 months, Jiwani said.

“He was the team’s go-to man. Even in today’s match he did a very good job and was one of the better players on the court. He hadn’t played for the national team but then, he was only 19 and still wasn’t completely prepared for that,” Jiwani said. As the news of Pawar’s death spread, a sombre atmosphere gripped the Games Village and several Maharashtra players were visibly shocked, while a few even started weeping, according to some reports.

The netball team too is in a state of shock, with the players unable to come to terms with the day’s proceedings. Jiwani, who is also a vice-president of Netball India and the competition director at the Kerala Games, said the team might pull out from the competition as the players are not in the ‘right frame of mind to compete.’ Maharashtra are scheduled to play their second match of the tournament on Tuesday morning against Karnataka.

“We will talk to the players. Mayuresh’s body will fly out from here at 9am and Maharashtra are playing a match at 10am. It is tough for the players to play in such circumstances,” Jiwani said. “We have to treat this issue with sensitivity. I will talk to the players and coach and take a decision.”