During the first month of the school opening, I was asked to take Kho-Kho practice, as I had played on the previous year's Kho-Kho team. But I was not interested in Kho-Kho as the under-19 and 17 teams shuffled and mixed like a cocktail. Not only that but also I was not particularly eager to play with the players present in the under 17 team. Because their minds are filled with toxic thoughts and actions.
Me and Rohith decided to leave the team. Rohit isalso not interested in playing in the team. But I didn't know the reason why he was not interested. Our PT mam requested us to take part in the team. But we refused to do it. I thought that my school sports career was likely to end.
The next day, Thulasi told me that Mam told him to form a Basketball team. I was surprised to hear that. Actually, Thulasi is interested in Kabaddi and wishes to form a Kabaddi team. But our PT sir didn't allow them to form a Kabbadi team as it cause many injuries. So our PT mam suggested him to form a Basketball team. Thereafter, he asked me to form that. I accepted and took a major part in making the team as I was interested in doing new things.
We gathered players and formed the first-ever Basketball team of our school. We have the only thing related to basketball is Basketball's ball. We don't have any coach, hoop even a Basketball court. So we did some drills that didn't require any of them.
Our practice happens like a supermoon. For the shoot practice, I made a Basketball hoop which is not bad. The zone-level match date was announced. We put a hard practice in that week as we had never done before.
On the match day, we were traveling on the bus with curiosity. We reached the host school. Only there we saw the Basketball court for the first time in real. The time was going on and we were waiting for our opponent team. After a while,the match organizer told us that our opponent had not come and we were the zone winners. All the players in the team became happy and discussed. ''we easily won the match without play.'' At that time, I didn't know that it was our luck or crunch. Because if we played the game we would have gained some knowledge and experience about the game. But we returned to our school without revealing our basketball Jersey to the school. luckily we won that game.
A few weeks after that the district-level match schedule was announced. We had our match with the Mohanur zone winners. Our many practice sessions ended in late evenings. We worked hard but many holidays and rainy days distracted our practice. We bought a new basketball hoop for practice. But we used it for 4 days only. The match day came in front of us. We traveled for more than an hour to reach the venue. We discussed the game and the position of players while traveling on the bus. At that time the sky was covered with clouds and that showed a chance for rain. One of us said,'' If heavy rain poured and lasted for much more time, the match would be postponed.'' Another one said,'' If the other 7 teams didn't come for the match we would be the district winners. I told them that there was no chance for that and let us concentrate on our game.
We reached the venue with confidence. All the teams arrived except the Velur and Mohanur teams. The luck had its entry twice for us. We were directly qualified for the next level as our opponent didn't come. We watched the gameplay of other teams. In that pink color jersey team played very well. We also shattered with the gameplay of the pink team. Our mam said a shocking thing that our next match is set with the pink Jersey team. Our confidence was crushed into powder and flew away. A little fear slowly crept into our minds but we apologized to ourselves and decided to give our best. That was the first basketball match in which we played.
The scene that happened in the first quarter has no link with our game plan. All the plans vanished in our minds and became blank. The opponent scored points second to second. But we were stuck there and weren't able to implement our strategy. We lost our stamina and total energy in just 5-6 minutes and became strong weak. I was deactivated in that situation. At that time We came to know the real face of the game.
After the first half of the match, we sat on the benches with regret as we couldn't score a single point. The match came to an end and we lost in huge difference. Our opponent team scored more than 50 points, but we didn't open our account and ended with zero. But lucky we got another chance to play as we just lost in the semi-finals.
In that match we not decided to firstly shoot, but to shoot our first goal. In the second quarter, I stepped into the court and Dhabaresh accomplished our first successful shoot. We felt very happy about that. After a short of that, I got a chance to shoot but I handled it wrongly and missed to shoot. But on the next chance I went near the post and shot the ball with a jump. I shooted my first successful goal in that match. Also, after that, I scored another goal successfully, but it was not noted on the scoreboard as the match was going to end in one or two minutes.
As the match came to an end, we scored 9 points and our opponent team scored 34. We secured 4th place at the district level. Returned home empty-handed. In that area, we discussed that if we played our zone match we would get some idea concerning the game.
Without a coach, mentor, and even a Basketball court we secured 4th place at the district level. The same luck pushed us to the district level and also pulled out from the top 3 positions. Still, I can't decide whether our zone match is luck or a lack for us.