Another wake up call for BFI

WATCHING THE ever-green Ram Kumar in action in the men's National basketball championship in Bangalore early this year, one wondered whether the competitive level of the game had improved or declined over the years in the country.

For Ramu, the former Indian star and the country's finest sharp- shooter for a long time, was well past his prime, but then when given an inch he takes a mile.

Until a few years ago, when the legendary Ajmer Singh was still active competitively, this duo, representing Indian Railways, forged a lethal combination, Ajmer's screening was impregnable, so to say. Even towards the end of Ajmer's career, which was till the late 90s and he in his 40s, most sides needed to depute two men to mark him, a superb in-court player that he was.

The Golden Age is always behind us. So it seems all the time, at least in sport. And we've had some very fine hoopsters, Kushi Ram, Abbas Montasir, Hanuman Singh, Radhya Shyam, Unwin J. Antony, C. V. Sunny, Jayasankar Menon, to name just a few.

The fine aspect about them all, their abilities apart, is the time span they dominated the sport, a good decade or more, at least at the National level.

India has had its highpoints in the Asian Basketball Confederation championships for men, a fifth place in the 1981 meet in Calcutta, sixth place in the Bangkok ABC (1987) and Beijing ABC (1989) before plummeting to the 13th spot (Kobe) and giving the miss to the 1993 ABC in Jakarta and the 1999 event in Fukuoka.

It was a recovery of sorts in the 1997 championship in Riyadh where India finished 11th, and in Shanghai recently, India, under the captaincy of Paraminder Singh, the six-foot 10-inch centre, better known as `Happy', finished eighth.

Well, Dame Luck played a sizable part in India making it to the quarterfinal league stage. Grouped in Pool `C', which was reduced to three teams (Chinese-Taipei, Uzbekistan and India) owing to pull-out by the fast- improving Saudi Arabia, a solo victory, over Uzbek, saw India progress as the second team from the pool to the quarterfinal League.

India lost all its matches thereafter, but the margins of defeat, were not much. In the 7th-8th position game, India lost narrowly to Chinese-Taipei.

One can't really blame the side though, for it was the first time in four years that India was competing abroad and against quality opposition, and apart from `Happy' none of the others had really played at the senior international level. It was also the first time that India was competing in the new rule format - eight seconds to cross the half line and 24 seconds to go through with the attempt.

If in the past the Indian sides lost due to lack of rebounds, this side was not short of Big Men, as they are called in hoop parlance, what with the average height something like six feet, six inches. Young and brimming with a combination of enthusiasm and talent, the indications are clear that it is up to the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) to take it from here.

To begin with, in the old days the preparation for the ABCs were for longer durations, sometimes phased over six months. This saw a high fitness level, better work-outs. In the Asian meet, a side plays at least six to seven matches in a space of eight to nine days and the body needs to be tuned. This time around, the boys underwent two camps, of rather short durations.

The BFI has over the years done precious little to improve the quality of the game in the country. Speak to the international players and they will tell you that the rest of the countries in Asia are miles ahead in terms of technique, tactics, et al.

Though the sport has indeed grown in popularity thanks to the satellite channels beaming NBA matches, the BFI hasn't been doing much in terms of promoting the game. In fact, the number of all- India tournaments have dropped.

The Asian Basketball Confederation Promotions Limited has shown a lot of interest in India, its tie-up with the Tamil Nadu Basketball Association saw the birth of India Basketball Academy. A good sign, a good start, but nothing much has come out thereafter.

But something needs to be done, maybe launch a National League on the lines of the NFL. Get former players involved and work something out. It's time the BFI woke up.

SANJAY RAJAN

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