Khelo India 2019, Basketball: Birds of different feather flock together, bound by a common thread

Pune, January 18: P Bala Dhaneshwar and Arvind Kumar are strikingly contrasting lads, fueled by a shared passion for basketball. The former, a Mannargudi farmer’s son, hails from a family that has not been known to produce athletes and is an outgoing sort. The latter is a second-generation sportsperson, son of a Chennai Port Trust hockey player, and a shy, reserved 18-year-old.

On Thursday, you could not distinguish one from the other in the basketball arena, their high-octane all-court performance spearheading Tamil Nadu’s dramatic and tactical victory over formidable Punjab in the men’s under-21 quarterfinals of the Khelo India Youth Games 2019 in the Shiv Chattrapati Sports Complex here.

They dug into the deepest reserves of energy to make the coach’s vision come true. Trailing 53-63 at the end of the third quarter, they strained every sinew as the team employed the full court press to their advantage. They forced many turnovers and found the basket briskly to help Tamil Nadu outscore Punjab 34-17 in the last quarter for a seven-point win.

Yet, in a display of acute awareness of strategy, the skipper Bala Dhaneshwar first gave credit to the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu coach Gnana Murugaraj. “We have to give him credit for the full court press. We knew he would tell us to do that and he chose the apt moment,” he said. “The energy from the bench was enormous and drove all of us on the court a great deal.”

Bala Dhaneshwar and Arvind Kumar admitted to being rusty coming into Pune, having spent time on the Tamil Nadu bench in the National Basketball Championships in Bhavnagar. “The rest of this team was preparing in Chennai and it is wonderful to be able to make everything fall in place at the most opportune moment,” he said.

“We have played together over the past year,” Bala Dhaneshwar said of his sinewy team-mate who is still a student of Loyola College and a Junior India player. Their positional awareness was a visual treat as Tamil Nadu stormed past Punjab which did not try to slow the game down. We have been able to strike a good understanding and either of us is aware of what the other would do.”

They were called upon to use up all their energy to turn the tables on Punjab. And they responded with gusto, having trained to win such decisive moments. All the training on the court and the endurance training in the gym came to the fore tellingly. “We are trained to face such do-or-die situations,” Bala Dhaneshwar, who now plays for Indian Bank, said.

Their sociological backgrounds may be different, but the Ullikottai farmer’s son and the Chennai hockey player’s son were bound by a deep understanding of team needs. It was the fuel that drove them hard today to secure a famous win. And it was a veritable lesson that the collective power of a team that thinks on its feet and executes its plans well would edge out individual brilliance.