BFI finds itself on wet surface

LUDHIANA, Feb 3: It was the case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand does. What J P Mishra, secretary general of the Basketball...

LUDHIANA, Feb 3: It was the case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand does. What J P Mishra, secretary general of the Basketball Federation of India BFI does is final and the rest of the members, be it in the committee or out of it, should simply follow him.

Mishra decided to shift the women8217;s quarter-final matches from outdoors to indoors mid-way through the National Basketball championships on the flimsy pretext of intermittent rain, which did not last long and the sun was out soon enough. In fact, there was more to it than met the eye. And some extraneous considerations were also involved.

According to the original schedule, in order to accommodate Doordarshan, when the technical commission chairman G M Sampath Kumar scheduled the women8217;s quarter-final matches in outdoor courts, it surprised nobody. After all, the game needed all the support and, by roping in DD, the BIF was also earning some money. But what surprised many was the sudden move to reschedule the matches afresh indoors aftera light drizzle. Three of the women8217;s matches had already reached the half-way stage and the Punjab women were at a disadvantage. Mishra confered with one of his joint secretaries, Teja Singh, who is also the organising secretary of the championships, and decided to shift the matches indoors. The scribes waiting otdoors for the matches to resume suddenly learnt about the change.

Sampath Kumar cited poor manpower, which prompted him to make the change. But when cornered, he fumbled for words. He regained his poise and directed the press party to address their questions to Mishra. The BFI secretary said, 8220;Because we want to give every one the opportunity and because Doordarshan is covering the matches live, we decided to shift.8221;

The men8217;s pre-quarterfinals were shifted to the same courts outdoors. So, the theory that those courts were unplayable seemed baseless.

And the Karnataka women were the only ones to play the quarters outdoors on a wet, slippery court which had nothing to do with the tournamentso far. And, expectedly, they went down to Madhya Pradesh as the conditions favoured the latter.

But they showed exemplary spirit by not protesting against the officials and letting them continue their devious tactics.

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Similarly, Delhi women, who fought courageously and lost their match to defending champions Railways, were also done in. As the teams were kept waiting for the matches to resume outdoors, the committee announced its decision to shift the match indoors and the team had little time to prepare itself. In the end, the better team won. Even indoors, Maharashtra proved stronger than Punjab as they had done outdoors. And Doordarshan is scheduled to begin its live coverage only from tomorrow.