July 28, 1980: The final day of the classification round of the basketball event in the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
The Indian men’s team had no chance of making it to the final round, let alone the medal matches. They knew this and accepted it sooner than those who hoped and prayed for them from afar.
Dwarfed by almost every player from the opposition, they showed up - excited but still out of place - with ‘Bharat’ printed in Hindi on their jerseys. They put up an effort worthy of restricted praise in a 75-93 loss against Australia.
Seven losses in as many games, but this was the closest they had come to being competent in a basketball match at the Olympics. This was also the last time an Indian team would feature in the Olympics.
“We finished fifth in the preceding Asian Basketball Championship so we weren’t supposed to go as only the top three teams qualify for the Olympics from the Asia Zone,” explains Ajmer Singh, the star of what many consider the greatest Indian team of all time.
“We only got our chance because almost everyone pulled out,” he adds sincerely.
In protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, the United States of America boycotted the Olympics and along went 64 other countries. Eighty countries participated, and only 12 of them signed up for the basketball event. India was among them, and they had three weeks to prepare for the greatest moment in Indian basketball history.
“We obviously weren’t prepared, but honestly, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference,” says Ajmer, who averaged an impressive 21 points per game in the tournament. “We got the news late at night a few weeks before and we started training. From the moment we heard the news, most of us didn’t sleep for a few days.”
He continues: “We couldn’t compete with the teams. They were bigger, stronger, faster and more prepared than us. We were just happy to be there. That said, we didn’t want to be pushovers either. We have a lot of pride in our love for the sport and the country. We tried as best we could. Finishing last doesn’t feel good, but we represented India in the Olympics, that feels great.”
Bengaluru’s Dilip Gurumurthy was there, and he recalled the experience much the same. “It was a dream,” says the Beagles product. “It was all happening so soon, but some of us held onto the hope that we could compete. Until then, we had played in the Asia Zone and there on a good day, you could surprise some teams. We hoped it would be the same. It wasn’t.”
Asked why they couldn’t compete much, Dilip, who is rarely recognised by the young basketball community these days, says: “The Russian women’s team was bigger than us! The foreign teams had more physicality. We didn’t have the kind of training they had and we didn’t have that exposure. We had no chance.”
Forty years on we have even lesser of a chance.
Inda’s results : Lt to Soviet Union: 121-65. Lt to Czechoslovakia: 133-65. Lt to Brazil: 137-64. lt to Poland: 113-67. Lt to Senegal: 81-59. Lt to Australia: 93-75.