NOVEMBER 2: The girls from Bombay South-West were victims of a raw deal that shunted them out of the 25th Maharashtra State Inter-District Basketball Championship for sub-junior (under-13) boys and girls at Fr Agnel Complex, Vashi, today. South-West had qualified for the quarter-finals by finishing second in Group B, with two wins and one loss in the league stage.The technical committee decided that South-West should be penalised for giving Pune a walk-over yesterday, and citing International Basketball Federation (FIBA) rules, relegated them to the last place in their pool.The committee - comprising HS Nadaf, joint secretary of Maharashtra State Basketball Association (MSBA), Olympian SS Narayan, vice-president, MSBA, and tournament organiser Ravi Nair - then asked Nashik, who finished third in Group B, to take South-West's place in the quarter-final. Ironically, South-West had beaten Nashik 23-10 in the league stage this morning.The South-West girls were distraught. It was evident that the technical committee had misread the rules. The relevant law, Section D.3.4 of Game Procedures in The FIBA rule book of July 1998, reads: ``A team which, without valid reasons, fails to appear to play a scheduled game or withdraws from the court before the end of the game, shall lose the game by forfeit and receive zero points in the classification. In addition, the technical committee may decide to relegate the team to the last place in the classification. This is automatically carried out if repeated violations occur by the same team.''The operative word in the section is `may'. The technical committee has the choice to act. At least two of the committee members, Nadaf and Narayan, were unaware of this operative word when questioned. Nadaf was under the belief that a walkover resulted in automatic relegation, which, as the rule states, is applicable only in the case of ``repeated violations''. Narayan believed that the committee had to take the decision because of the rules, which was ``beyond their control''. In fact, the prerogative clearly rested with the committee.South-West has lodged a complaint with the committee, but as the quarter-finals are already over, any redressal appears unlikely. Asked to explain the rationale for the decision, Nadaf told The Express Newsline the team was being punished for multiple reasons, chief of them being indiscipline. He said: ``The team was supposed to play yesterday at 8 am. They asked for a change to 2 pm. We then told them to play their two league matches at 4 pm and 10 pm, as it would be too hot at 2 pm. They played their first match, but kept us in the dark about their withdrawal from the late night match against Pune. How many times do we adjust the schedule for them?''While the committee had the right to take the decision, it does smack of injustice. Other issues were possibly at play, including the long-standing rivalry between South-West manager Lilita Figueiredo and the organisers. An observer said, ``They would have put up with schedule changes for 99 teams. Only for this team, they decided to act stern.''Nadaf said, ``This should serve as an example to everyone. This is the state championships, teams cannot give walkovers at will.''Luck ran out for Bombay South-West boys too. A spirited fightback in the third and fourth quarters was in vain, as they lost to the superior bench strength of Bombay North. North won 74-68, after leading 46-27 at half-time.South-West relied too heavily on the tall Siraj Ansari, who contributed 32 points. North, in contrast, had the height advantage, and better overall strength.ResultsBoys (QF): Bombay North 78 (Manish Singh 17, Rajaram Gupta 10, Franco 11) bt Bombay South-West 68 (Siraj Ansari 32, Afzal Shikh 11) HT 46-27; Bombay South-East 60 (Karan Tyagi 16) bt Yavatmal 14 HT 33-6.PQF: Solapur 33 (Ritesh Dehmukh 11) bt Kolhapur 29, HT 15-13; South-West 67 (Jamil Khan 21, Zahiruddin Shaikh 13, Siraj Ansari 10) bt Nashik 20 HT 40-14; Nagpur 35 (Swapnil Bhagwat 9) bt Dhule 8 HT 15-4; Yavatmal 35 (N Mainkar 8) bt Thane 13 HT 19-6.League: Bombay North 30 bt Thane 14; Bombay South-West 64 bt Yavatmal 37; Nagpur 33 bt Sangli 18. Girls (QF): Nagpur 46 (Khushboo Sawal 10, Sandhya Srinivas 10) bt Satara 10 HT 26-6; Bombay Central 27 (G Ketaki 14) bt Nashik 9 HT 10-7. League: Nagpur 37 (Smita Mire 17) bt Bhandara 15 HT 15-9; Thane 62 (U Jacob 16, Devashree Patwardhan 10) bt Chandrapur 7 HT 41-2; Nagpur 51 bt Mumbai Central 12 HT 31-8; Bombay South-West 23 (Evelyn Goes 11) bt Nashik 10 HT 11-8; Pune w/o Bombay South-West; Thane 29 (Sadhana Datar 10) bt Solapur 10 HT 14-4.The juniors event of the UPL Weekend Basketball League, conducted by Hoop-a-Loop, kicked off with four one-sided affairs at Nagpada Court last weekend. School of Basketball notched the league's first hundred as they defeated a team of schoolboys, Sports Academy, Juhu, 118-21, in a Group F match. In Group A, Andheri YMCA defeated Learn The Game (Blue) 68-25, while Somaiya Sports Club accounted for Learn The Game (Red) 78-33 in a Group E encounter.ResultsBoys Under-18 (Group A): Andheri YMCA 68 (K Siddharth 22, C Ganesh 14, Rylan Rebello 18) bt Learn The Game (Blue) 25 HT 33-11; Group B: Flying Apostles 66 (Karl Lopes 16, Nikhil Nayak 15, Aaron Fernz 14) bt Chembur YMCA 25 (Ramkumar 12) HT 32-10; Group E: Somaiya Sports Club 78 (Pankaj Rane 22, Sachin More 19, Ijaz Shaikh 15) bt Learn The Game (Red) 33 (Jason Fernandes 14) HT 30-17; Group F: School of Basketball 118 (B Chinmay 32, Rathindra Dasgupta 18, Sahil Vora 19, Jigar Vikmani 10, Virendra Bhosle 10) bt Sports Academy 21 (Ameya Redkar 10) HT 38-15.Pepsi cup at kennedy sea faceShardashram eng 221-7 in 45 overs (Sandessh Amrute 49, Chintan shah 39, harvinder singh 3-33) bt Amrut education 152 in 34 overs (Faizal shaikh 37, nadir shaikh 38, gaurang shah 4-29, g yadav 3-52).
