: The rise of women’s football, and to some extent cricket, appears to have hit basketball in Malappuram.
For the second year in a row, Malappuram District could not field a team in the Kerala State senior basketball championship which begins here on Tuesday.
“Our girls are mostly juniors and school girls, they played in the junior and sub-junior championships and in State schools events...but we don’t have basketball in colleges here. That is why we could not send a women’s team for the State championship,” Hemanth, the Malappuram Basketball Association secretary, told The Hindu on Monday night.
“We don’t even have proper indoor courts in the district. But many schools have facilities for football, even for cricket now. The few players who are good in basketball go and play for other districts and we don’t stop them, that would be unfair.”
Malappuram finds itself in Group ‘A’ along with women’s defending champion Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha and its absence means that the other two enter the quarterfinal without playing a match!
“It would have been a big shock for them had they come and played a team like Thiruvananthapuram,” said Hemanth.
State championship groupings:
Women: Group A: Thiruvananthapuram, Alappuzha, Malappuram. Pool B: Palakkad, Kozhikode, Kasargod. Pool C: Pathanamthitta, Thrissur, Kollam. Pool D: Kottayam, Ernakulam, Kannur.
Men: Pool A: Ernakulam, Kannur, Thrissur, Idukki. Pool B: Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta, Kozhikode. Pool C: Kasargod, Alappuzha, Wayanad. Pool D: Palakkad, Kollam, Malappuram.
Published - October 01, 2024 04:37 am IST
