CHENNAI: Poonam Chaturvedi stands out from the rest, literally. Standing seven foot — 213 centimetre (approx), she, as per records, is the tallest Indian female athlete. In her brief cameo for the Railways at the senior national basketball championship here — where they defeated Chaturvedi's former team Chhatisgarh 84-40 on Wednesday — she dominated the post, scoring 12 points. Her match-up was a complete mismatch, and Chaturvedi, as she is known to do, had to simply collect those long passes from her teammates and bank it into the net.
While she dominated the post and took her opponents to the washers, she is humble and down to earth, as she obliged to taking photographs from the guards off the court.
Whenever she steps onto the court, all attention is on her, for her height makes basketball look easy. However, her journey to success in the sport was not easy. Growing up in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, she was subject to bullying and harassment because of her height in school.
Already at a height of 6’2 aged 15, she did not have any interest in sport until a family friend suggested she take up basketball. From there on, the game has been her space to express herself and vent her frustrations out. "One of my dad's friends asked me whether I can play this game, and that's how I got into basketball," she said on the sidelines on Wednesday. After getting scouted by former India coach Rajesh Patel, who is based in Chhattisgarh, she moved there in 2011, before joining Railways in 2019.
She also represented India in the 2012 FIBA U18 Women's Asia Cup Division B in Malaysia. There, she showcased her dominance. According to an article on FIBA, she scored 32 points and recorded 17 rebounds against Hong Kong in the said tournament. She helped the team earn promotion to Division A. But just as her career was about to gain momentum, she was dealt with a big blow — a brain tumour in 2013. Several Ayurvedic treatments and acupuncture magnet therapy sessions later, she got past that tumour, and continued playing the sport. She made her senior team debut in 2017 at the FIBA Asian Cup Division B. Although she put up creditable performances, her reported instances of headaches hindered her performances. Now aged 30, Chaturvedi aims to play as long as she can, and aims to work on her fitness. "I want to keep playing like this with a lot of hard work, it feels like I've just begun playing," she explained.
Chaturvedi's height cannot be matched, says coach
On the court, her teammates can bank on her height for successful passes, but with her build comes a lot of physical frailties. Railways team coach and former senior India women's team captain Anitha Paulraj revealed that her lanky cager is returning from a 'severe' ankle injury which she suffered in a inter-railway match last year. "Her biggest advantage is height. No one can match her in the country," the Padma Shri awardee spoke of her former teammate. "We are also improving on her shooting qualities. We are working to improve her strength, which is necessary for the game, but when it comes to the game, she can well receive balls and score points," she added. So far, she has averaged 11.3 points per game. within 10.3 minutes per game in this tournament. With Railways — the defending champions sealing the quarterfinals berth, Chaturvedi, like her teammates, will be eager to defend the title here.
Select results: Women: Group A: Railways 84 bt Chhattisgarh 40 Group B: Kerala 82 bt Tamil Nadu 65. Men: Group A: Rajasthan 88 bt Services 80; Group B: Uttar Pradesh 89 bt Chandigarh 56; Indian Railways 95 bt Punjab 58.
