Basket Case

If the TV remote tuned into early morning NBA telecasts is your only link with basketball,then Sikar is fated to stay veiled behind those towering walls that were built to protect,not to hide. But no other geographical belt in India deserves more recognition for providing a consistent feeder line to Indian basketball. They carried forward the lineage because their fathers,cousins and uncles had lent their skills to various departmental teams with a measure of distinction a halo adding to their 200-cm average height.

Sikars tale,to an extent,explains the odd story of Indian basketball. The sport is very much alive in the cities,with NBA ratings shooting up and basketball courts filling up with Lakers jerseys every evening. Yet,the popularity of the sport has no connection to it being in a healthy state. Those who watch NBA,and love the courtside hip-hop,are playing in posh public schools and software campuses; they hardly aspire to play the sport at any high level.
Those who really play it as a passion,as a ticket to a government job are far removed from the glamour associated with basketballs most-recognised American staple.

GIANT FOOTPRINTS
Rajasthan cagers ruled on the national scene in the 70s,as the likes of Hanumant Singh,Ajmer Singh,Khushiram,Radheshyam and Surendra Katariya rose to prominence. At one time,the state boasted of four out of the five donning India colours. But the irony of these lofty giants occupying just a small corner of popular mind-space with their annual mention on the Arjuna Awards scroll was not lost in basketball circles.
But neither the lack of limelight,nor the fading employment opportunities teams such as Kotas Shriram Rayons,Oil India Jodhpur and Customs Jaipur have wrapped up operations has deterred successive generations from Sikar,Alwar,Bhilawar,Ajmer and Jaipur,from aiming at the rim and pounding on dusty outdoor courts. Cynicism sets in eventually,but long before that,these men are hooked to a dribbling-dunking habit that they find exceedingly tough to let go of.

Mahipal Singh,Jairam Jat,Dalip Singh and Mohit Bhandari are current big names from the desert state,but as they wander the realms of obscurity,Rajasthan struggles to come to terms with a fall in its basketball fortunes. Almost two decades after the states twin premier basketball tournaments the Dasgupta Cup in Jaipur and the Gold Cup in Bhilwara disappeared from a hoopsters already slim calendar,Rajasthan again exited quietly in the quarter-finals this year from the senior nationals.
Kamran Khan,a nimble-footed forward,who followed three older brothers onto the court first as score-keeper and later grudgingly allowed entry onto the playing zone feels the weight of expectation coming down with each passing year. The interest will soon be over if things dont change. Basketball is inherited by blood in Rajasthan. A show-team had come to Jaipur when I was young,and there was this very dark player called David. I fell in love with the game as soon as I watched the tricks he did with the ball; later I realised that my brothers too could do the cross dribble, he says.

ALL DOWNHILL8230;
From 1987,when the state picked national honours in all categories mini,junior,youth and seniors,its been one straight slide as India has systematically neglected its biggest asset the born-tall raw material.
Todays NBA junkies would be wrong in presuming that the sports desi dialect was too infra dig for city-slickers to identify with. Surendra Katariya,an Arjuna awardee,recalls that in the truest traditions of basketball,it was Brijmohan Diwalkar,a professor of history and also an international referee,who put together the most popular tournaments in Bhilwara,where legends like Khushiram wowed the crowds.

Government College,Ajmer,and now BITS Pilani,kept the spirit going,but the sport could never attract that so-called suave section of the colleges. Its not like cricket has taken root in Rajasthan either so there are no convenient blames here. But with no infrastructure,no systematic coaching and nobody ready to share the responsibility of performance,the wasted talent from the Sikar belt remains the disappointing story of Rajasthan, Katariya says. Players concede that in their prime years,a sisters wedding,uncertain rains and basketballs poor returns are the preoccupying concerns,and that a heart-breaking separation from the sport becomes inevitable.

SMALL TOWN,TALL TALK
With Sikar as his starting point,Ramkumar,one of Indias best-known shooters who hails from Kota and is now the Indian Railways coach,has taken it upon himself to go across the country scouting for the big boys.
What Ramkumar has done through his champion Railways squad is to hunt down talent from Indias remote interiors,polish their skills and throw them into the exhibition ring,where the city-spectator will judge them on their talent. These skills,draped into smart,bright vests and expressing themselves with impressive jumpers on court,are honed in corners as far as Bhavnagar Harpal Singh,Varanasi Vishesh Bhriguvanshi,Amritsar Yadwinder Singh and Indore Prakash Mishra. The little-known Kakoli village in Haryana with its above-average heights is the latest on his radar now.

Indias most recent star from the Junior Asian Basketball Championships is Vishesh Bhriguvanshi,who believes that his generation will attract an audience comprising school students from even the bigger cities. Bring any Indian to a match featuring the nations top teams,and lets see if they can walk away unimpressed. No chance, the 19-year-old challenges. You watch a game live,and you know just how difficult it is,how much effort goes into the sport. I started because of my brother,and since Ive chosen this line,I want to do better than anyone else has done in India, he says

Varanasi,far removed from LA Lakers or Phoenix Suns jerseys,is heaving internationals onto the basketball scene by the dozens. And with the NBA-phenomenon kicking in only after young boys and girls have drilled the basics into their systems and picked up a few inter-school titles,youngsters in this UP town are not worn out by the daunting standards at international levels. So,current international Trideep Rai idolised Ramkumar while gaping at Reggie Miller.
My father played the game. I knew quite early I wanted to be a ball player when I landed at the SAI hostel. If people know me,its because of basketball and I wouldnt change my sport for anything, Rai says. Employed with ONGC as an officer,Rai returns to Varanasi often,stacking up basketballs in the racks of a hostel that survives on the left-over kits of its alumni.

STILL DRIBBLING
Railways guard Prakash Mishra,fished out of Indore another fast-developing basketball nursery highlights the hazy spotlight that falls on his sport. In the cities,they are unwilling to give us even a first look,though NBA popularity is at an all-time high. In villages they confuse us with volleyball. Weve never really got our own audience. It is a team game,and theres not much in it right now. But if everyone starts saying that,where will the game go? he asks.

In between discussing promotions into Class-3 clerical seniority,and increments that go with national titles,Mishra picks new moves from NBA DVDs. But at 56 and nowhere close to getting under the groovy American flashbulbs,he is one of the many willing to break his heart and limb though knees are the commonest complaint for his chosen sport.
But Suresh Ranot believes the scene isnt as depressing as many people believe. The forward one of cash-rich ONGCs earliest recruits says the best in India can enjoy 3-star accommodation and 3-tier AC berths,and buy Adidas and Reebok shoes. But players need to make the most of these opportunities. Almost all our internationals come from smaller towns where hard work and respect to coaches is a given. Big cities are not as conducive, says the player from Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Even in Dehradun,though Doon School and Woodstock boast of fancy basketball courts,the boys come from good families and they know what they want to do in life. Basketball is not the priority, he says.

GUARDED POINT
With the game moving indoors with a 24-second shot-clock,floodlights,and musical accompaniments basketball has attracted sizable crowds in India,though its TV coverage takes a beating as four stiffly-positioned cameras try to do what 24 cameras capture in an NBA game,giving the impression of the Indian game being a slow-mo version. At the recent nationals 31 December-7 January,spectators were on the edge of their seats,and sometimes on their feet,as matches turned exhilarating.
The fact that a domestic tournament with only Indian stars could stir up such a frenzy means the sport can sell itself if marketed smartly. A professional league,comprising six to eight city-based teams,is expected to be inaugurated in India in the next six months,but without participation of the private sector the game will take longer to shed its formal,annual-sports-day image.

National coach Alexander Bucan believes Indias international results will need to get better if it aims at furthering its reach wider. Currently,India stand 16th in Asia,though in a first of big results,the Indian colts picked a gold at a 3-on-3 eight-team event in Indonesia.

S Robinson has played leagues in Iran,and Talwinderjit Singh is trying his luck in California but the Serbian coach contends that itll be important for at least one Indian to hit the big league. Because of Yao Ming,we think the Chinese are big. Ditto for Russians a few on the NBA draft list and we believe they must be a tall race. But thats not true. Its simple: you have a billion and theres a big chance of getting tall people with the right constitution if we get our scouting act together, he says.
It could start with Kunoor and Calicut in Kerala,or Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu or Punjabs Ludhiana or Amritsar. Or,once again,with the gentle giants from Sikar.

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