CHENNAI: Coach Aman Sharma is calmly walking up and down, near the Jammu & Kashmir dugout. “No problem, guys,” he shouts ever so often. The support staff and the players on the bench too chime in with a few words of encouragement. “Come on, guys. We can still do it.”
The players reacted to those words. They moved a bit faster, pressed Telangana, their opponents, and harried them. They sunk a few three points and found the basket from the paint on a couple of other occasions. But in the end, the difference was too huge. Telangana won the match at the ongoing basketball Nationals 70-57. Sharma, who is in charge of the J&K team, isn’t too displeased with the result. More words of encouragement follow before he asks the team to congratulate the victors.
For a few, a loss may be hard to digest. For the likes of Sharma and his team, getting to this stage in itself merits applause. Only two cities – Jammu & Srinagar – in the entire State have a proper basketball court. The catchment area – thanks to the prevailing law and order situation – isn’t all that big and militancy had halted the development of all sports for more than three decades.
Sharma is intimate with all of the above subjects. “The problem is we do not have the pre-requisite infrastructure even at the district level,” he tells Express. “Basketball is such that you cannot play it without specialised infrastructure – good courts, baskets and proper balls. That could not be developed due to militancy in the previous years.”
He claims that it has reduced quite a bit but the ghosts of horrors past continues to linger. “It has decreased quite a bit. But we have been facing these problems for close to three decades. And during those thirty years, we have lost a lot.”
That is just one factor. The State basketball association also did not help. “The previous association were not doing much,” Sharma, who is a senior man in Sports Authority of India (SAI), says. “They were in power for more than 25 years but did not do much. But the people who control the sport in the state have changed and the new incumbents have come up with some exciting ideas.” SAI have also provided some help – like starting a centre in Jammu. Institutions like those will be key to ensuring the current players, almost entirely made up of students from Jammu’s 10 provinces (only one player, Autif Khan, is from the valley), stick to the game.
Sharma, who also apportions part of the blame to previous state governments for not prioritising sports, says the scenario may be changing. “J&K has certain peculiarities when you compare it with rest of the country,” he points out. “But it’s changing. Because governments have finally realised that youth can be brought to the mainstream, especially in the Valley, through sports.”
swaroop@newindianexpress.com