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Time Out for Cricket, Let’s Tip Off for Basketball
Posted By Raj S. Rangarajan, New York On In Opinion | No Comments
For the first time in the United States, an all-Indian 12-strong basketball team took to the court on Friday, July 22. Known as “India Rising”, this new team of ball players, faced a Syracuse, New York-based team —Boeheim’s Army — in the The Basketball Tournament (TBT) for the prize money of 1 million dollars.
India Rising (IR) has brought together the world’s best players of Indian origin to compete in TBT. With over 10 million hoopers in India and basketball being the most popular sport in the Indian-American and Indo-Canadian diasporas, India Rising was created to showcase to the world that brown ballers exist.
“I spent most of my life praying, waiting, hoping, dreaming to see people who looked like me on our sports channels, and I’m done waiting,” confesses Gautam Kapur, co-founder and general manager of the team and former strategy manager at the NBA (National Basketball Association).
Gautam Kapur, GM, India Rising; Photo: The Auntie Network
“Being tall (6’ 3”) I naturally gravitated to basketball, but didn’t really have any role models who looked like me. Now, there are more than 60 professional, Indian-origin ballers worldwide, and nobody knows they exist. India Rising, the new home for brown athletes, aims to change that.”
In India, when we talk sports, folks most often think cricket, or perhaps football or even tennis. But now with a strong global following Gautam feels, India Rising team will be the home for “brown” players in many parts of the world where the game is followed with fervor.
Twenty-eight years old, Gautam dual-majored in Economics and International Relations at well-known Tufts University (a private school in Massachusetts) with a minor in Entrepreneurship and Chinese, a rare combination. Earlier, Gautam, who attended the American Embassy School in New Delhi (first school in India to ever host an NBA camp in 2008, Basketball Without Borders), played Point Guard for his school team and was Varsity Basketball Captain.
Since Gautam played intra-murals for Tufts, to a question as to why he didn’t turn pro his response was: “I wish I could have turned pro, but that was not my path. Instead, I entered the world of professional basketball by joining the NBA in 2016 as Strategy Manager and worked there for six years.” Currently, Gautam manages the IR team and is preoccupied with promoting basketball wherever ballers meet.
India Rising Squad: Extreme right is Gautam Kapur, GM; 2nd from left, front row: Ajay Sharma, Head Coach, India Rising Squad; Photos: The Auntie Network
Since NBA has had a presence in India since 2008, to a question about pro-level ballers in India, Gautam said, “Right now, there are many talented Indian-origin players both in the subcontinent and the diaspora. But there are no active NBA players yet.”
Gautam opened up on his dedicated band of players. “There are a lot of talented guys on this team, and this is only the beginning,” said Josh Sharma, India Rising’s seven-foot forward and former Stanford University Cardinal, who has also played in Poland. “So, I think this is going to be that stepping stone for not only everybody on the team but also the next generation of Indian ballers, so that the world recognizes the talent coming out of our community.”
“Winning games is our main priority right now, and secondly, it’s creating a sense of community for (Indian-origin) athletes,” said Navin Ramharak, India Rising COO from Canada. “We’re creating a brotherhood and that goes beyond the game of basketball. Our most important goal is defeating cultural stereotypes. We want to start a cultural movement that if you’re Indian and looking to move into athletics, there’s a home for you to play and a community for you to belong.”
Basketball Coming to India in a Big Way
Gautam is very upbeat that this new initiative will be a winner specially for Indian basketball. “We are taking India Rising to New Delhi in the coming months to host a “Basketball Bloc Party”, which is a celebration of basketball lifestyle. We will host dunk contests, skills challenges, 3×3 and 5×5 scrimmages, and celebrate how Indian culture and basketball go hand in hand. It will be a historic event that celebrates brown basketball.”
This historic All-Star roster represents a diverse pool of talent from all corners of the world, including the NBA, G League, NBL Australasia (Australia, New Zealand), U.Sports (Canada), multiple FIBA national teams, and 3X3 basketball which is a variation that plays three players a side with one backboard and a half-court setup.
Reportedly, enthusiasts from sports bodies in the U.S., including the governor of Indiana state, Eric Holcomb as also basketball coaches and top officials from Delhi and Mumbai have been passionate about the project.
As a mentor and general manager, Gautam is proud of the diversity within India Rising’s roster. We have a practicing orthopedic surgeon Sai Tummala at Mayo Clinic (Small Forward, 6’ 6”); Shooting Guard Gokul Natesan, 6’ 5” who is pursuing a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Columbia University while playing professionally in Australia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Finland, and Point Guard Varun Ram, 5’ 9” who is studying for an MBA from Stanford University.
India Rising’s Head Coach Ajay Sharma, from Scarborough, Toronto has also been coaching the women’s team at Humber College for more than seven years. Supremely skilled admirable stamina and physicality are Forward Bikramjit Gill, 6’ 8”, from Boston and Indiana, who has played in Japan and Canada; Power Forward Sukhmail Maithon, 6’ 10” who too has played for Boston University and in varied other environments; Small Forward Kiran Shastri, 6’ 7” from Hawaii and Power Forward Princepal Singh (Bajwa), originally from Firozpur, Punjab, 6’ 9”, who was the first NBA Academy India graduate to sign up professionally.
Of Canadian origin are Point Guard from Queens University Jaz Bains, 5’ 11”; Shooting Guard Aryan Sharma from University of Western Ontario, 6’ 6” and from University of North British Columbia is Inderbir Singh Gill, 6’ 3” and well-recognized Forward-finisher Robbie Sihota, 6’ 6” from University of Calgary who has played overseas.
India Rising Needs to Play more regularly as a Team
At the opener last week, there was palpable enthusiasm and verve among the players. The score of 62-90 against the defending champions Syracuse’s Boeheim’s Army was disappointing for fans but the India Rising team, which was working together for the first time as a team, was commendable. The fact that they had trained together for merely a week in Canada was evident with it’s remarkable athleticism and recovery skills on the hard board.
Top scorers were Robbie Silhota with 12 points; Sukhmail Mathon with 11 and Aryan Sharma with 10. As the game was reaching its crescendo, three scintillating 3-pointers from downtown, back-to-back by Kiran Shastri (11 points) brought the roof down in a manner of speaking and made the Friday evening worthwhile.
Since it was a shorter game in terms of time, each ball possession was invaluable and helped in defense. Anticipation, ball reversals and execution marked IR’s crafty plays though a couple of baskets by big guy Josh were off the mark by just that wee bit!
In the final analysis, the more experienced team Boeheim’s Army with home court advantage, who were last year’s winners moved into the Second round. Regrettably, The Nerd Team from neighboring Onondaga Community College in New York eliminated Boeheim’s Army the next day at 81-74.
Finance for the team is sponsored by The Auntie Network, players, South Asian businesses, Airbnb, Uber, a venture group, food and Tee-shirt franchises.
Resource: India Rising website www.indiarising.co.
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The Author: Raj S Rangarajan is a freelance journalist based out of New York. He can be contacted at: raj.rangarajan@gmail.com
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