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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  Ball Game | Go ahead, jump
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Ball Game | Go ahead, jump

The basketball team's unlikely victory over China is the result of an aggressive push to develop the sport

India’s Amjyot Singh in action against Singapore at the 2014 Asia Cup. Photo: Fibaasia.NetPremium
India’s Amjyot Singh in action against Singapore at the 2014 Asia Cup. Photo: Fibaasia.Net

It looked so fluid, so easy: Pratham Singh, standing mid-court, passes the ball to Amjyot Singh, who is positioned at the edge of the arc. Amjyot gives the ball back to Pratham, who accelerates away from his marker towards the left of the court. Amjyot’s defender takes his eyes off his mark for a second, tracking Pratham, and Amjyot takes that opportunity to make a sneaky dart towards the basket. Pratham sees the run, and in a flash, loops the ball up and towards the basket. Amjyot leaps, with his back to the basket, and casually touches the ball to send it through the hoop.

It’s the fourth quarter of India’s league match against China at the Fédération Internationale de Basketball (Fiba) Asia Cup. Less than 4 minutes to go. India lead 57 to 52. This has never happened before—China are ranked exactly 50 places above India in the world basketball rankings and all its players on court are pros. India are a raggedy bunch of amateurs. Chinese players are called for trials by the US’ National Basketball Association (NBA); some of the Indian players on the team had not even heard of basketball five years back.

The day before India played China had seen some fireworks too. India were defeated by Japan in their opening game, but not before two of India’s best players, Amjyot and Amritpal Singh, were told to remove their turbans or leave the court, in accordance with a bizarre Fiba rule that disallows “dangerous" headgear. The two Indians were only allowed back after the turbans were removed and their hair was tied with rubber bands. They did not know it then, but the incident had immediate repercussions, and sprung a Twitter and social network movement called “#LetSikhsPlay".

“There was no time then to think about all that," says coach Scott Flemming. “No time to feel sorry for ourselves. We had to get back, and into the game. China were up the very next day—homeground, big crowd backing them—we had our task cut out."

“Defence, defence, defence." Flemming told the players, 30, maybe 40, times in the 24 hours between the Japan and China games. India were a weaker side—less experienced, less developed in their skills and movement—so a good defence was critical if they had to survive the Chinese.

They did more than survive. They took down Asia’s No.1 team, 15-time winners of the Asian Basketball Championship, and a team that had won all their seven previous meetings by massive margins.

Could this match be the game changer for Indian basketball?

“I feel like we did really grow up during that game," says Flemming. “There have been matches where we have competed well for a while, but then just lost it under pressure. This time, we had an answer every time they (China) came at us."

What made Flemming happiest is that the defence held tight through the tournament, where India won two more games (against Indonesia and Singapore) and lost narrowly in the quarter-final against the Philippines, to notch up their best-ever result at the Asian level.

“If you look at the way we played in the tournament, we did not shoot the ball real well, but we made each team earn their shots," Flemming says. “And then we hit some real timely baskets. That’s what it takes to win against big teams."

Full-court press

India’s transformation from hapless amateurs to a rising force in Asia began four years ago, when American sports and entertainment company IMG Worldwide and Reliance Industries entered into a 30-year deal with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) for all commercial rights to the sport in India, including sponsorship, advertising, broadcasting, merchandising and franchising rights, as well as advising the BFI on managing school and college leagues.

The NBA also got into the act, identifying India as their next big overseas market after their success in China, built on the popularity of Yao Ming, the former NBA star from Shanghai, and Jeremy Lin, an American of Taiwanese descent who now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The NBA began running clinics and workshops for players and coaches, and started a tournament called the Mahindra NBA Challenge across five Indian cities in 2010. The tournament now features 600 school- and college-level teams, and over 800 coaches of the same level have attended NBA workshops since 2010.

In 2011, the national sides got their first coaches from the US: Former NBA player and coach Kenny Natt took over the men’s side, while veteran collegiate coach Pete Gaudet took over the women’s team; basketball fitness specialist Zak Penwell also joined the team.

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Coach Scott Flemming during a training session in New Delhi. Photo: Abhinav Jerath/BFI

Many of the Indian players who featured in the Asia Cup are products of this drive to make basketball a more popular and accessible sport. Amjyot, who is 21, picked up basketball when he was 16.

“Before that, I played cricket and football," Amjyot says. “Basketball seemed like a waste of time." That changed when he saw the NBA holding workshops in his school, and the BFI putting out advertisements to recruit promising young players for its academy in Ludhiana.

“My father had actually played basketball at the national level," Amjyot says. “And my mother was into shot put and won lots of medals in college. So it was always going to be sports for me, and with my height, basketball was the perfect choice. But there was nothing in the sport here in India till recently, so I am very happy that I got my chance when I did." Within a year, Amjyot had made his way into the Punjab team, then the national junior squad, and was making his debut at the 2011 Asian Championship for the senior team.

If Amjyot had a bit of basketball built into his genes, his 7ft-tall teammate Amritpal, who also put in stellar performances at the Asia Cup, had no clue about the game when he first held a ball. The 22-year-old from Punjab was standing at a bus stop in Ludhiana in 2009 when a coach from the Ludhiana academy saw him and immediately walked up to him. “Do you play basketball?" the coach asked Amritpal. “No, I play kabaddi," he had replied. The coach asked Amritpal to come down to the academy and train for a couple of months. The next year, he was in the Punjab squad. “Everything happened so quickly," Amritpal says. “Here I was working on my farm, growing wheat and rice and vegetables, and then suddenly I was jumping with a ball in my hand. I thought it was fantastic, this sport."

“It’s a great sign, this team of very young, very promising players," says Flemming. “Almost all the players in the national team are under 25, and rapidly improving. Amritpal, I think, has shown the most improvement."

Flemming’s brief extends beyond the national team, like it did with his predecessor Natt. He works with the national camps, from the Under-14 team to the senior squad. He travels across India holding coaching clinics for coaches.

“It makes sense to do this," Flemming says. “To keep building these young teams, young players, under the same system, so that there’s no gap in their knowledge of at least the fundamentals when they come through to the senior squad. In four-five years, we will see that make a difference."

Technology helps as well. Flemming uses a basketball-specific software which allows him to log in all his drills and plays and share it with other coaches. “I can just drop a new play or a new drill into it, and then the coaches can follow that," Flemming says, “or they can feed in a play of their own, and I can go through it."

There are, of course, many more hurdles to cross. Most of the facilities are falling apart. Court floors are warped, or often too slippery. None of the government facilities are air-conditioned, a major problem when you are trying to train at high-intensity. Worse, players often find stadiums locked when they arrive for practice, or there are long power cuts.

Some of those problems were sidetracked when the BFI entered into a two-year deal with Jaypee Greens, a residential complex in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh, to use their private facilities. From April, the national squads moved to the swank new facility, training and living there.

“That’s as good a facility as you would get in the US," Flemming says. “I feel there is a direct correlation between us training there and how we played at the Asia Cup. When you get quality practice every day without having to worry about the conditions, you will do well, it’s as simple as that."

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Published: 26 Jul 2014, 12:05 AM IST
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