The Young Cagers?

Seriously, the Indian Basketball team needs a different name.

This probably might might be old news for some, but India lost to Afghanistan in SAG finals held in Dhaka on Feb 6. I've been trying to find out blogs, and articles about the 'loss' but couldn't read up much, not more than a couple of paragraphs mentioned about the team reaching final... guess b'ball isn't respected enough in India yet. But then, we lose to Afghanistan, probably don't have much to complain on lack of coverage.

According to 'official reports', reaching finals is going to 'help' us prepare for FIBA Commonwealth Basketball Championships to be held in Bangalore this year. Well, I'm not sure how losing to an un-ranked team will help 49th ranked India. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, the national team's sure changed over the past few years. Can't seem to find the friendly neighborhood Robinson, Shabir, etc. who used to play for 'IOB club' in the T Nagar (Chennai) annual tourney, as well as used to play in India team; nor the grumpy ol' Parminder Singh Sr. from Punjab Police (invariably the other finalists in the tourney, whenever they played). Sure looks like a lot of players went through the national team in a hurry (no surprise that Sr. must have retired, but Robin? Unless injured, he should have still been around....). Hope for India's sake that the Asian All-Star is doing great in some league abroad, he was a phenom to watch.