Standard of Indian basketball has gone down

For the past few days, the basketball courts in Madhavan Park Stadium here in Bangalore is flocked by a couple of thousand people who seem to enjoy watching some mean looking basketballers slug it out on court. SBM Jain University is hosting their All India Sports Festival Vie 2012 and some of the top college teams in the country are taking part.As a cricket enthusiast who follows domestic circuit, it was quite amusing for me to see how people turn out to watch college basketball as oppose to a handful of them turning out to watch some of the biggest names in Indian cricket play Ranji. It’s true that even if a Rahul Dravid is batting in his best form at a Ranji Trophy game there won’t be more than twenty people cheering for him from the stands.

This disparity in people’s choice of viewing a local team play live only states that basketball is definitely a mass sport and if marketed properly we can match the madness generated by cricket.

Anyway, that’s not the point I want to debate about here.

As a sports writer, I happen to wonder why we don’t have a great basketball team if we as a nation love the sport so much? It beats me how we are not able to produce a single ‘Yao Ming’ (the Chinese NBA star who played for Houston Rockets).

“We have a lot of talent but honestly, I feel the standard of basketball has deteriorated in India over the past few years,” admits CV Sunny, former India captain who is now the coach of Jeppiaar Engineering College.

The former India player from Tamil Nadu who was known for his ball-handling skills puts the blame on players for giving more importance for bodybuilding and looking good on the court rather than a skillful play. “Back in our days, watching the Indian team play was really exciting because each one of us had a very skillful game. Players these days lack skill and are more bothered about powerplay and building their muscles,” he quips.

It was interesting for me to findout that some of the top colleges like Sathyabhama University, SRM College, Jeppiaars in Tamil Nadu pay a stipend of Rs8000-Rs20000 depending on the performance of the players. What was all the more interesting was that these players prefer playing for their college than the nation.

“Most of our players travel through the year playing all India-level tournaments. Some of them do get a call from national selectors to attend India camps but they don’t go. It’s not that college does not support them to play for India but it’s their individual choice,” says Sunny.

Listening to this, I am sort of forced to believe that money is a major criteria. We have the talent, we have the interest but do we have the money to pay our players?

Why would a 20-year-old give up on a monthly stipend and also a degree in engineering only to go play for the nation which offers pittance at the end of the day.

They get free admissions into engineering colleges and enjoy the perks given by the college until they pass out which is clearly not the case when you play for the nation.

“Actually the players themselves don’t want to go attend two-three months of India camp and miss colleges matches and exams. It’s a choice they make and we as an institution don’t insist on them playing only for the college team,” asserts Sunny.

I don’t blame these poor basketball players for choosing college over nation. I wonder if the Ranji players or even for that matter our national cricket team would continue to play cricket if they stop receiving hefty pay from their state associations or the BCCI?

A question that is worth a debate over a coffee table, don’t you think?