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Photo:Vipin Chandran

BRIGHT FUTURE The Ernakulam sub-junior basketball players have grown by leaps and bounds

But Ernakulam, the champion team at the State Sub-junior Basketball Championship at Thevara, has turned this notion on its head. Seven of the team’s 12 players are from Vaduthala’s Don Bosco School, an ICSE institution, while three CBSE schools – Sacred Heart Public School, Nava Nirman and The Choice - have contributed four players.

There is only one player from the Sacred Heart School, a State syllabus school, in the team.

“This is peculiar to Ernakulam, no other district has this look,” says K.O.Oommen, the Kerala Basketball Association’s media coordinator. “That’s because Ernakulam has the most number of tournaments in the under-12 and 13 age-group in Kerala, mostly organised by CBSE and ICSE schools.”

Most of these tournaments are district-level tournaments because inviting State syllabus schools from other districts would almost always see them walking away with the show.

“But this ‘closed tournament circuit’ within Ernakulam has seen the district’s standard go up in a big way,” says Oommen who has played a big role in developing the thriving State schools circuit which is believed to be one of the best in the country now.

“And now, many of the Bhavans schools students from Ernakulam are even representing Kasargod District at the State Championship.”

Ernakulam was also the tallest team at the sub-junior State championship which ended at the Sacred Heart School courts on Sunday. And at six-foot, two-inch, the reliable Bibin Selvin is the team’s tallest player.

A little more than two years ago, Bibin was a footballer at the Don Bosco School. “But after seeing my height, our sports ‘Sir’ asked me whether I would like to try out basketball,” says Bibin, the 12-year-old, who was in the national camp in November-December. “Everything changed after that.”

A little more than a decade ago, table tennis was a thriving sport at Don Bosco. A few years ago, it was football. Now table tennis has faded away and basketball virtually rules the scene, says M. B. Anilkumar, the Vaduthala school’s physical education teacher. “We have nearly 60 children playing every day. And four of our school children are in the Ernakulam District’s main five.”

Basketball may not appear very active or attractive at the senior level in India but fed on the NBA regularly, it is a vibrant sport at the school level, especially in Kerala. In fact, many of the schools tournaments in Kerala are organised much better than even all-India and State-level tournaments in the State.

“We have some 45 schools tournaments in Kerala every year,” said Oommen, who is popularly known as Babykutty in the basketball circuit.

With so much talent on display, it is not surprising that many of the engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu are keen to have the Kerala players in their institutions.

“Apart from free education, accommodation and food, some of the colleges are now even offering Rs 5,000 pocket money every month to a few talented Kerala players,” revealed Oommen.

“Chennai’s Sathyabhama University alone has some eight players from Kerala. Our players are in big demand, more so in the last couple of years,” says Oommen.

Tamil Nadu also has a very active basketball circuit, there are nearly 50 State-level tournaments every year but most of them are inter-club events.

There is a new trend even in Kerala. Last year, there were nearly 15 tournaments among professional colleges in the State, some of them with good prize-money.

For sure, Kerala’s lively schools circuit is the big reason for lovely new signs.

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