Bahrain cagers do India a favour

NAGPUR: The Friendship Day began on a happy note for Indian men cagers. With their second round berth hanging in balance, Bahrain did them a huge favour as they shut the doors on Thailand, handing them 24-point (86-62) defeat in the last prelim round game. The result gave India a place in the second round of the 27th Fiba Asia Basketball Championship at Manila, Philippines.
At the end of the prelim round, three teams - Kazakhstan, Bahrain and India - advanced to the next stage from Group D and will square up against the top Asian teams Iran, Korea and China in the second round for a place in the quarterfinals.
All the six teams - carrying the results and points of their prelim round - will play three games apiece to move into the knockout stage.
With this entry into the second round, India has improved since their previous four appearances and still stands a chance to make it to the quarterfinals.
"One of our goals was to make it to the next round. We have done that. We now will do our best to prepare and look to upset the power teams of Asia in the second round. We will see how it goes. We will take it one day at a time," India coach Scott Flemming told TOI.
In 2005 India finished 12th in Asia and under Kenny Natt - guide of LeBron James the team had a disappointing 14th place finish in 2011. India's best finish in ABC, however, was way back in 1967 and 1975 when they achieved the semifinal finish while made it to the quarterfinal stage in 2001 and 2003. In 1989 the team finished a creditable 6th.
To achieve their previous best that they did a decade ago, Indian cagers need to play with confidence. Up against the Asia's best, Team India face an uphill task. An upset result is what India coach Scott is counting on. "I have had a lot of my teams do that in the past," he said.
"We are doing our best to keep improving and making adjustments. We have heard many positive comments about how the team has improved from recent year. Unfortunately the tough loss to Bahrain put us in a more difficult position in regards to our standing. We have a very difficult task in our next 3 games but we will do everything we can to pull upsets. There is no one that wants to win more than I do but I still feel after only three months with the team we are going in the right direction."
Thanks to a better goal average India are placed above World No 11 China in the second round standings. On Monday, the 58th ranked Indian outfit takes on the group C toppers and world No 20 Iran, at 10.15 am. While square up against China on Tuesday evening and face the 33rd ranked Korea in a late night game on Wednesday.