Tag: basketball

Top 10 most popular sports in India

 Top 10 most popular sports in India

As we all know sports is essential part of any country. Every country has its own national sports and India’s national sports game is hockey 🏑. There are many sports which are not popular right now but hope so it will be become popular after sometime in the future. Now let’s see top 10 most popular sports which is famous in India.

1. Cricket 

Cricket is the most popular sport in India. The Board of Control for Cricket in India is the worldwide pioneer when it comes to profits in the world of Cricket. India has some fabulous cricketers like Kapil Dev, Rohit Sharma Sunil Gavaskar, Virat Kohli, and Sachin Tendulkar.
Every child in India once wants to play  cricket in his life. Every young wants to join Indian cricket team by this you can imagine how much cricket gain popularity in India.

2. Football 

Soccer or football is the second most favorite sport in India. However, the Indian national football team does not have much achievement at the global level, and the Indian national football team is on 96th rank in FIFA rankings. 
Who don’t know about Sunil Chhetri , the captain is of Indian football team . Because of his efforts and support India gain a name in the terms of football all over the world.

3. Hockey 

Hockey is the national sports of India.India has achieved 8 gold, one silver, and two bronze medals, more than any other team in the world. India gain a name in the field of hockey because of their hockey men’s team.
They also registered their victory at the world cup tournament 1975 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lately, at the 2018 Asian Games, the Indian Women’s team has won the silver medal. Furthermore, the Men’s team has also worked to get the bronze medal at the tournament.

4. Badminton 

In India mostly girls wants to play badminton and they earn name and fame by playing this . This is 2nd most played sports in India . Saina Nehwal who is known for the playing badminton for the country. She ranked 2nd in the world in 2010.Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand, both achieved the All England Open in 1980 and 2001 respectively. However, Saina is not alone an Indian badminton player who won an Olympic medal as P. V. Sindhu achieved the Olympic silver in 2016. Saina achieved the bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics.

5. Tennis 

Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna are the real motivation for Indian youth following tennis. I don’t know whether they play well in single but they played well in double and in mix games .
Indian Tennis players have received pretty good spots in international tournaments in the last few years.

6. Chess 

Chess becomes the most popular sports in India for especially past two decades due to chess Grandmaster and former World Champion Viswanathan Anand. 
Vishwanathan Anand play chess at international level . He is inspiration of many of the young youth of the country .
The All India Chess Federation is the governing body for chess in India. Additionally, players like Harikrishna Pentala and Vidit Santosh Gujrathi has recently won pretty good spots in the 2020 FIDE ranking.

7. Motor sports 

As I don’t know much about motor sports but i wish it will become more population and seen as a international level sport.
Motorsport has achieved a lot of popularity in India in modern times. Though it is not very common for India to take part in the game, it has a huge fan following. Formula One has taken off in the nation in the past few years, with the first-ever Indian Formula One driver competing in 2005 and the first-ever Formula One Indian Grand Prix in 2011. India has one of the best Grand Prix circuits, the Buddh International Circuit, in Greater Noida.

8. Wrestling 

Wrestling is one of the most-watched sports in India, and youngsters in India are a huge fan of wrestling. WWE has pushed The Great Khali, an Indian police officer turned professional wrestler, to draw Indian audiences’ attention.
Recently in 2018, the Indian team has achieved two gold medals and a bronze at the Asian Games.

9.  Table tennis 

Table tennis is a famous indoor sport in India that has caught on in states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The Table Tennis Federation of India is the official sports body to manage table tennis in India. India’s Sharath Kamal has been ranked 43rd in the world as of 2017. Also, the Indian team has recently won two bronze medals in the 2018 Asian Games at Jakarta.

10. Basketball 

Basketball  in India is played mostly in schools, colleges, and universities. Furthermore, there is significant support for the game among the younger generation. Basketball in India is played by both men and women of all ages and abilities and, Indian Basketball follows FIBA International Basketball Federation rules for organizing basketball tournaments.

BASKETBALL

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately 9.4 inches (24 cm in diameter) through the defender’s hoop a basket 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter mounted 10 feet (3.048 m) high to a backboard at each end of the court) while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

The five players on each side fall into five playing positions. The tallest player is usually the center, the second-tallest and strongest is the power forward, a slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach’s game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.

In December 1891, James Naismith, a Canadian professor of physical education and instructor at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts, was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he invented a new game in which players would pass a ball to teammates and try to score points by tossing the ball into a basket mounted on a wall.

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. These round balls from “association football” were made, at the time, with a set of laces to close off the hole needed for inserting the inflatable bladder after the other sewn-together segments of the ball’s cover had been flipped outside-in. These laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith. The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use.

"Basketball" is the sport really ready to take off in India?

 With Giannis antetokoumpo a Greek national born in Nigeria winning the 2021 NBA title, the question has to be asked “With basketball becoming more international than ever, can the game find solid footing in India?”. 

The answer unfortunately is not a simple yes or no, no matter how much we want it to be. The truth is in the last two decades basketball has become quite popular in the urban communities across India. Every park, school, college, society has a hoop kids can play in. NBA icons like Michael Jordan, Lebron James and late Kobe Bryant motivate and inspire kids as much as any other sportsperson. 

And yet the sport’s popularity remains in the shadows. It has little representation in the popular culture, movies, it doesn’t even have a league like IFC for football. Now part of it is because cricket rules supreme in India (but surely a nation of a billion people can have more than one sport) and the other is because the groundwork for the sport never existed in the country. 

BFI the governing body of basketball clearly didn’t have a lot of success in nurturing the talent that existed in the country. The Indian national team never had a great record in the international tournaments not to sat they’ve never had any. But the trend seems to be taking a turn for the better. NBA association has opened schools for developing talent from a young age, BFI in controlled collaboration seems to only benefit from it. 

It is only a matter of time when the prodigies of India take their place in the international tournaments and the country is exposed to the beauty of the game. Basketball aficionados of the country are hungry for a rise in the sport and they might just get their wish. Who know maybe we’ll have one of our won lifting the NBA trophy one day!       

"Basketball" is the sport really ready to take off in India?

 With Giannis antetokoumpo a Greek national born in Nigeria winning the 2021 NBA title, the question has to be asked “With basketball becoming more international than ever, can the game find solid footing in India?”. 

The answer unfortunately is not a simple yes or no, no matter how much we want it to be. The truth is in the last two decades basketball has become quite popular in the urban communities across India. Every park, school, college, society has a hoop kids can play in. NBA icons like Michael Jordan, Lebron James and late Kobe Bryant motivate and inspire kids as much as any other sportsperson. 

And yet the sport’s popularity remains in the shadows. It has little representation in the popular culture, movies, it doesn’t even have a league like IFC for football. Now part of it is because cricket rules supreme in India (but surely a nation of a billion people can have more than one sport) and the other is because the groundwork for the sport never existed in the country. 

BFI the governing body of basketball clearly didn’t have a lot of success in nurturing the talent that existed in the country. The Indian national team never had a great record in the international tournaments not to sat they’ve never had any. But the trend seems to be taking a turn for the better. NBA association has opened schools for developing talent from a young age, BFI in controlled collaboration seems to only benefit from it. 

It is only a matter of time when the prodigies of India take their place in the international tournaments and the country is exposed to the beauty of the game. Basketball aficionados of the country are hungry for a rise in the sport and they might just get their wish. Who know maybe we’ll have one of our won lifting the NBA trophy one day!       

Basketball in India

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately 9.4 inches (24 cm) in diameter) through the defender’s hoop (a basket 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter mounted 10 feet (3.048 m) high to a backboard at each end of the court) while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

The five players on each side fall into five playing positions. The tallest player is usually the center, the second-tallest and strongest is the power forward, a slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach’s game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world’s most popular and widely viewed sports.

Bball in India

In India, basketball is a popular sport, with a multi-tiered professional club league system, as well as men’s and women’s national teams.In India, the game of basketball started its journey in 1930 when it was played for the first time. The first Indian National Championship for men was conducted in 1934 in New Delhi. The Basketball Federation of India (BFI), which controls the game in India was formed in 1950. Throughout history, Indians learned to appreciate the game because of its fast scoring and intense activity from the beginning until the end.Basketball in India is played in most of the high schools, colleges and universities. There is considerable patronage for the game among the younger generation. Basketball in India is played by both men and women of all ages and ability. Many government institutions have professional basketball teams, who work for the institution and play for them. For example, ONGC in Uttarakhand, Indian Overaseas Bank in Tamil Nadu, Indian Bank in Karnataka, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited in New Delhi, Indian Railways, and Kerala State Electricity Board in Trivandrum play for their respective institution and state.

There are many championships for senior, junior, and youth levels for boys and girls.Being one of the earliest countries to adopt basketball, India has so far produced numerous talented basketball players, who have earned recognition in the international arena. Indian basketball players have also won several trophies for their country. Basketball in India is mainly being run and managed by a large number of national and state level associations, spread all over India. These basketball associations are working with a common view of popularizing the game in all parts of the country. Apart from that, developing the overall infrastructure for the game and uncovering new talent from the grass route level are some of the other principal objectives of the Indian basketball associations.

Professional leagues

List of major Basketball Tournaments in India:

  1. UBA Pro League
  2. National Championship
  3. Federation Cup
  4. ISBL and ICBL (Indian School Basketball League and Indian College Basketball League)

Jordan’s are a must for a sneaker head

Air Jordan is an American brand of basketball shoes, athletic, casual, and style clothing produced by Nike. It was Founded in Chicago, the Air Jordan was created for Hall of Fame basketball player and six-time NBA Finals MVP Michael Jordan during his time with the Chicago Bulls. The original Air Jordan sneakers were produced exclusively for Michael Jordan in late 1984. The Air jordan sneakers were made available to public on April 1st 1985. The shoes were designed for Nike by Peter Moore, Tinker Hatfield, and Bruce Kilgore.

History

Coming from North Carolina university, Michael Jordan was an 3rd overall pick in the first round of the NBA draft of 1984. He was drafted by the Chicago Bulls. At the time Michael jordan entered the NBA and before the basketball sneaker game was boring. The players were allowed to wear only sneakers of “white” colour. The shoe was given a small astheitc touch such as a logo, extra tread or support. In 1972, the world witnessed the introduction of Nike blazer, a basketball shoe made for the portland trial blazers. These sneakers were made famous by George the iceman Gervin. The Nike blazer was advanced both in branding and also in technology.

In 1984, a young basketball prodigy entered the NBA, with the performance of Michael Jordan in his rookie year it was understood that he had a great future ahead of him. Nike noticed his talent and prospect and took a unique risk and decided to sign a deal with Michael Jordan to produce his own line of basketball shoes. Micheal jordan always had worn “ADIDAS” till that point of time, but then he got carried away with NIKE executives and their desire to sign a contract with him. The original Air Jordan 1’s were exclusively produced for Micheal Jordan in 1984, the first jordan’s had a different colour-way in contrast to the shoes that existed before the introduction of Jordan’s. The shoes were in flamboyant colour’s of black and red, the original shoes were banned by the NBA because the shoes were full coloured. The NBA felt that the “white shoes” convention was being violated.

When these shoes were made available to the public for sale, they instantly sold out, 50,000 pairs were instantly sold out. It was a game changer for NIKE and also a game changer in the field of sneakers, NIKE made 150 million out of sales with the release of that shoe.

Why they need a place in your sneaker collection?

The ostentatious history of these shoes makes it a must on your sneaker collection. The brand brings pride in your sneaker game, no matter what you buy, once you have jordan’s on your feet they gonna dominate all the other shoes in your collection. The sneakers available in the jordan line are multifarious. They indeed produce the most comfortable and the most eye catching sneakers.

Cost factor – all the sneakers of jordan, they are pretty costly.A question arises, whether these shoes are worth the money? well, To summarize: yes — Jordans are definitely worth it. Even the handful of more mass-produced pairs offer up similar leathers; and if you pick up a Triple White Jordan 1 Mid or a Bred Jordan Zoom 92, then you’ll be able to secure an everyday pair you can easily wear for a solid amount of time.

AN YEAR SINCE KOBE BID ADIEU

Today, 26th January 2021 marks the first death anniversary of Kobe Bean Bryant, the renowned basketball legend of America, widely known as ‘black mamba’. He passed away in a tragic helicopter crash that happened last year along with his 13 year old daughter Gianna Bryant and 7 others while traveling to Bryant’s Mamba Academy in  Thousand Oaks for a basketball match. Kobe’s shocking demise came early at the age of 41 leaving his wife Vanessa with his other daughters Natalia, Bianca and Capri. 

Kobe was born to former National Basketball Association (NBA)  player Joe Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant on August 23, 1978 in Philadelphia. Kobe started playing basketball at a very young age of 3. He joined the NBA in 1997 at the age of 17 when he signed for Los Angeles Lakers, becoming the sixth player in the history of the NBA to do so. He further went on to become the youngest player ever to play in an NBA game and the youngest NBA starter. During his long career with Lakers which stretched over an outstanding 20 seasons, Kobe managed to average 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.7 assists in 1,346 regular season games. Throughout his NBA career, Kobe won a MVP award, played 18 all star games and won five NBA championships with the Lakers. He was a part of the gold winning basketball team which represented the USA in the Beijing and London Olympics. He announced his retirement in 2015 owing to his fading form after a prolonged career and series of injuries.

August 24 is declared to be remembered as Kobe Bryant day by the Orange County’s Board of Supervisors to commemorate his invaluable achievements and the inspiration he was to many aspiring athletes. During his NBA career Kobe wore the numbers 8 and 24, which is chosen as a date to celebrate the talent and the cultural icon he was.