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Hoopsters high on confidence

Kerala has plunged in the National rankings but they hope to reverse the trend in the forthcoming South Zone championship, says STAN RAYAN

GEARING UP The Kerala basketball team with coach P. J. Sebastian (left) at the training camp PHOTO: MAHESH HARILAL

Quietly, without creating much of a ripple, the Kerala basketball team is warming up for the South Zone Championship, which begins in Kottayam this Wednesday.

While Indian football and volleyball have their national league, basketball has been rather slow to adapt to these things and is now paying the price all over the country.

Even in Kerala, though the schools circuit is quite vibrant, the number of tournaments at the senior level has drastically come down. And though Kochi's Central Excise won the men's Federation Cup last year and emerged as India's top club, the recent Senior National in Pune pushed some bitter facts to the fore again.

Two years ago, Kerala finished runner-up to Tamil Nadu at the Cuttack Senior National. But now, there is a big gulf separating the two, with Kerala five rungs behind its neighbour at No.8. Kerala has fallen even behind Karnataka and is now third in the southern order, if the final rankings in Pune are any indication.

Despite these uncomfortable statistics, Kerala is confident of winning the South Zone.

"Tamil Nadu will be without Indian star S. Robinson who is in the Commonwealth Games' Indian camp. That should give a big boost to our chances," said Monish Wilson, the former Junior India captain at the Don Bosco centre, Vennala, where the State camp was held.

But there seemed to be more good news from Chennai.

"Not only Robinson, we will be without our best six who played the Senior National," said R. Selvarajan, the Tamil Nadu Basketball Association secretary.

"Mihir Pandey is also in the National camp while Jugan (A. D. Sukhavaneshwaran) recently got married and is honeymooning now. And Sivasankar, who is getting married soon, has also taken a break," he said. "So all the matches in Kottayam should be close with the top four teams being equal."

The Kerala coach P. J. Sebastian has planned his strategy keeping defending champion Tamil Nadu in mind.

"We'll be trying half-court pressure defence and man-to-man `denial defence' which we hope should choke the rival forwards," said Sebastian, who will be making his debut as the State men's team coach.

Kerala has strong forwards in Monish, Bobit Mathew and T. S. Abhilash but there's some confusion in the post area with M. Anoop in the national camp and the position of Subash Shenoy very unclear.

"Subash has been dropped from the Indian camp, from the short listed 14. He is shocked, like all of us in the State. He's very upset too and there's no confirmation whether he'd play the South Zone," said the coach who had been with the State women's and junior teams before.

If Subash plays, it should lift Kerala in a big way in Kottayam for he was the star of Central Excise's Federation Cup triumph early last year.

The team is now mainly from Kochi's Central Excise and Thiruvananthapuram's BSNL and KSEB.

Prior to the Senior National, the State men had just a day's full camp as the Central Excise and BSNL players were away playing inter-unit tourneys for their employers. But the South Zone camp will run for a fortnight.

Kerala's last triumph in the men's South Zone came more than 30 years ago. Will Kottayam change all that?

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