FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers: An solemn return for India in Chennai

Chennai: With international basketball returning to the state capital after 15 years, the buzz around the city was high. Indian skipper Muin Bek Hafeez had called for youngsters to come watch the match live and support them and Chennai responded brilliantly. 

The Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium was filled with school kids, all dressed in blue waving the Indian flag and cheering them right from the moment the players stepped out for their warmup routines. 

For Hafeez, Arvind Muthu Krishnan, Pranav Prince, and Baladhaneshwar Poiyamozhi, the occasion was even more special, since for the four Tamil Nadu players, it was their first game on their home turf. 

And as if that was not enough, every basket they scored on during the warmup was met with a vociferous roar from the crowd, who were making the most of the occasion amidst the tunes of Kollywood played by the DJ. 

But once the dust settled, reality hit India and at the end of the match, the scoreline read, India 53-69 Qatar. 

Qatar, a team ranked far below the Indian side, managed to defeat India comprehensively in the Group E fixture of the FIBA Asia Cup Qualifiers, putting India's qualification for the 2025 Asia Cup in jeopardy. 

A tale of two halves

In fairness, India wouldn't have been very unhappy going into halftime. They were trailing Qatar 31-36, and India did look bright and were able to match the Qataris' intensity and aggression for large parts of the first two quarters. 

But the worst was yet to come for India, as they got run over by the Qataris in the second half, and when the match ended, India had amassed just 22 points in the third and fourth quarter, as opposed to Qatar's 33. 

Knowing Qatar would be athletically and physically superior to India, coach Scott Flemming knew India had to play to its strengths, which was three-point shooting. 

"Our strength is uh three-point shooting and we struggled tonight, the other thing we knew we'd be at a disadvantage is that didn't rebound the ball nearly as well as we should have. Those were probably the two biggest keys," he said, in the post-match press conference. 

Coming into the third quarter, India was barely able to do anything, thanks to Qatar's tight defense, which allowed for minimal penetration into the optimal shooting zones and India therefore had to settle for shooting from tight angles which did not, as expected, yield the desired results. 

India did have their chances with open shots but a combination of a higher athletic ceiling and better defensive organisation and pressure meant that nothing went in for India. 

"I don't think we played poorly. I guess if we had hit those shots, we'd been right there. It wasn't a matter of five points at half-time. If we had come and hit those first three or four shots, we'd been up a couple," he asserted. 

Local lads run the show

Every cloud has a silver lining, and in India's defeat today, the silver lining was the performance of the Tamil boys, who were the bright spots of the team. 

In fact, of the 53 total points India secured in the match, 37 of them came from the Tamil quartet of Muin Bek Hafeez, Arvind Kumar, Pranav Prince, and Baladhaneshwar. 

Skipper Hafeez impressed the most, with five three-pointers in the first half but he had a quiet second half, scoring just two more. 

But Pranav Prince was arguably India's best player across the court, making crucial blocks in defense and also scoring important points, 13 of them to be precise. 

He scored six of the eight points India scored in the third quarter and also had a wonderful block that prevented a certain two points for Qatar. 

The noise levels were high throughout the night, but it went up higher when the local boys were on the pitch, and at one point in the fourth quarter, four of the five on-field players were Tamil, which caused the roof to crack at the Nehru stadium. 

Sadly, all those noises counted for naught as India succumbed to its third straight defeat in the qualifiers, and are faced with a daunting predicament of an absolute must-win against a much tougher Kazahstan team on Monday in Chennai. 

Speaking about the next game, India's Pranav Prince stated "I don't think we played our system today. It felt like they (Qatar) made us play how they wanted us to play. Next time, we will look to come out hard and take that lead and keep up the intensity across four quarters and not just two."