Our players don't work hard: Gulam Abbas Moontasir

Former India basketball captain bemoans falling standards
BENGALURU: Gone are the days when 14 basketball players were crammed into one room during national camps, got a two-dollar daily allowance on tours and a poor diet. These days Indian players are well looked after and that's why former India skipper Gulam Abbas Moontasir is disappointed with the current lot.
"In basketball, we can do well at the Asian level.But don't expect anything at the Olympics. For the 1980 Moscow Olympics we qualified because of the boycott. I had told the then BFI bosses that we will lose to our rivals by 50 points except Senegal and that's what happened," Moontasir said, who was here last week for the Basketball Federation of India's felicitation function, said.
"Forty years later, we have gone worse. Basically, our players are not willing to work hard. An American coach had once reported to BFI secretary that our players are not working hard. Look at the hard work put in by PV Sindhu and Sunil Gavaskar and their achievements. I never walked on a basketball court when the game is on but these days I see players walking (lacking intensity) on the court. We are good at giving excuses and that's the basic problem," the former India skipper said.
The 79-year-old former India captain, who travelled from Mumbai to receive the honour, recalled that he made his India debut at the of 16. "I was selected for the Indian team in 1958 when I was just 16 years old. The Australian team was going back from the Rome Olympics, They stopped over in India and we played exhibition matches with them and lost by three points."
Asked to recall his best moments in India colours, Moontasir, the first Indian in the Asian All Star team to win the Arjuna award in 1970, said: "Our best was against Israel in the 1970 Asian Games. We had lost to Japan and Korea by 20 points but Israel had beaten them. We were trailing by one point in the last two minutes. Unfortunately two mispasses cost us the game."
India, who advanced to the final round, lost to Israel 74-82. They finished at the bottom of the table, losing all their games in the six-team final round. Eventually, India finished sixth among 12 teams.
"But today's players are well taken care off compared to what we went through. Fourteen of us were sleeping in one room whether it was in Kapurthala or NIS Patiala. That included players like (Sunil Kumar) Panda, Ajmer (Singh) who were 7' 3, 6'6, 6'5. The Indian team used to have a real tough time. Even at NIS, our diet was bad. We were getting two dollars per day during tours."