Known for their lackadaisical approach in conducting and promoting various sporting activities, officials of Nagpur University gave basketball players of the region plenty of embarrassment in Jaipur.
With a second string squad, varsity men's team got a sound 25-point thrashing at the hands of Shivaji University, Kolhapur, in their opening tie of the West Zone Inter-University Basketball Championship at Jaipur, Rajasthan. The 46-71 humiliation that Nagpur University - the 2007 champions - suffered has eventually saw their exit from the all-important event.
Prior to the tourney in a selection goof-up, the five-member committee - appointed to pick the NU team - did not select a single member of the champion team, GH Raisoni College of Engineering, that won the inter-college championship which was held at the Shivaji Nagar Gymkhana courts early this month.
During the three-day selection trials, the officials allegedly did not treat the 40 odd players well. This indifferent attitude forced some of the aspiring cagers to back out from the trials.
Current national cager Parag Shirbhayye, who won the best shooter award during the West Zone tourney in 2007, too was not spared by the selectors. Parag, who led the Raisoni team to triumph, eventually decided to not to go with the team. In a chat with TOI Parag, the only senior cager who attended the trials, said, "Yes, I opted out of the team."
Explaining the reason, he added, "due to the compulsory industrial visit of my college, I took permission for a day's off from the selectors. The next day, however, I came for the trials but was late by five minutes. To my surprise I was punished and asked to wait for 50 minutes."
"Do I deserve such a treatment in front of my juniors?" queried Parag.
As a player, varsity lacks in fulfilling some basic needs and at the same time treats its players badly. Then how can one expect a good performance, questioned one of the former university stars.
When Rajesh Alone, chairman of selection committee, was asked why not a single Raisoni player from the three that attended the trials, was not selected, he gave a very dubious answer. "Raisoni's best cager Parag didn't give the trials at all and the other two, Gaurav Sood and Sunay Jaiswal, were not better than the selected ones, hence no one was selected," stated Alone.
Sports officer of Raisoni College, Inderjeet Singh Randhawa, too was furious with this decision. "Despite winning the championship, we got a shocking treatment," quipped Randhawa.
After all such blunders, the 12-member NU team was selected for the west zone tourney with five stand byes. However, six players withdrew and hours before the team's departure, selectors added Siddhesh Ingole of YCCE to the team.
The 12th man too faced a bit of mental torture from the authorities. Minutes before his departure, Siddhesh was called in the director's office only to be told that he is not allowed to go with the team. The shocking decision united all his teammates who fought with the authorities.
Finally, when chairman of the department of sports Nagpur University, Babanrao Taywade, came to know about such a bad treatment he utilised his powers and gave justice to Siddhesh.
The off the field activities perhaps affected the morale of the players as they ousted in the first round.
The quarterwise scores in favour of Kolhapur read 18-8, 17-11, 11-12, 25-14. Skipper Akshay Belwalkar (14) top scored for Nagpur, while Rohit Pisipati and Nakul Ghate scored 12 points apiece.
Several attempts to contact Dhananjay Welukar, director of the sports department, went in vain.
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