Srinagar, Oct 30: The refusal by Department of Youth Services and Sports (DYSS) to send basketball teams for national participation has courted criticism from the players of the State.
 Every year, DYSS sends contingents for different national school games participation and basketball is one discipline among them.
 This year National School Games for basketball is scheduled to be held at Alwar Rajasthan from November 3 to 8. As the national event is about to start in Rajasthan, the DYSS has decided not to send any basketball team.
 A delegation of players told Greater Kashmir that DYSS has decided not to send the team without giving any thought and they did not even conduct the district and State level competitions in Jammu and Kashmir for this purpose.
 “DYSS was the only agency working for the upliftment of basketball sport in the State. Now with this decision, we are pushed to wall,” said a player.
 “For the whole year, we have been waiting for the national participation. We were of the view that DYSS will conduct usual district and State level competitions before selecting the team for the national event. However, they did not conduct any championship and are now refusing to send teams for the national event,” he said.
 When contacted Director DYSS, JP Singh, he said, “We have decided not to send the team keeping in view their past record. They have not been doing well in the national arena hence there is no need to send the teams”.
  When asked that Basketball is not the only sport in which State is not doing well, he said, “We are looking into all the disciplines that have not been performing well at national level. The teams whose performance is not satisfactory will not be sent for national participation.”
 The players, however, blamed lack of infrastructure and coaching for the poor performance.
 “DYSS doesn’t have basketball courts of their own, they don’t have qualified basketball coaches and still they blame players for poor performance. When we are not getting facilities including quality coaching, how can they expect us to excel at national arena,” the players said.
 “If DYSS want to improve the performance of teams, they should give serious thought on improving the standard of sports at basic level, instead of playing with our careers,” they added.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 IST