Wattala Golds are Cager champions

Angu Rajendran

Wattala Golds, the defending champions, took the top award once again, scoring 32 very quick points to Old Bens Green’s 25. The fastest game of the tournament was played by Wattala Golds whose players were moulded into a team with great understanding and accurate passing and under - the -basket shots.

Though Sanjay Ganlath started scoring in the last three minutes of the game for Old Bens Greens, it was way too late to even hope for a win. Too many mistakes and too many shots had been missed and too little time to recover.

In this era of instant gratification and twenty20 cricket, it is but natural that a short and quick version of basketball should evolve as well. St Eugene’s Association of ex Seminarians have popularized a short version with just five a side basketball matches.

Playing for seven minutes each half, with a thirty second break, twenty men’s teams and six women’s teams took part in the five a side tournament conducted at Police Park over last week-end organized by the St Eugene’s Association - ‘In order to raise funds for charity’ said Joison Fernando, President of the association.

Only teams from B division could enter this tournament, and while the eleven qualified referees in the country were on high alert, team after team had to show their skills and talents in just fifteen minutes which is usually one quarter in a regular basketball match. ‘In this quick and speedy version there is no room for error and team work and accuracy of shooting are the key.

The idea is to get players to play a faster game and to improve their shooting,’ said Ajit Kuruppu Vice President of the Basketball Federation which recognizes that the instant version of matches might be here to stay.

In the womens final, Premila Fernando and nationals MVP Kumarine Silva top scored for their Track Masters Club enabling their team to take the award beating Air Force 25/17 in the final. In the Plate final (for the runner up teams), Moratuwa beat All Greens 25/19 while in the Bowl final Joes beat Old Bens White 21/15.

There was a display of three fine three pointers from the half court line by young Praveen Ganlath for Old Bens Whites close to the end of the match proving that it was too late to come back into the game.

Definitely, a high power basketball version is here to stay.