HSC Blues deny foreign raid on the court, locals win victory

Wednesday, 9 July 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

For the first time in Sri Lankan basketball club history, foreign players were allowed to play in a Division-I championship. Few teams were able to add one or two foreign players in their team roster and basketball fans expected to see an exciting and a competitive game as never seen before. In the preliminary games foreign players clearly bought a change in the game until the Blues counterattacked them in one game. HSC Blues participated in the battle fully loaded with local players in their roster and in preliminary games they posted easy wins over teams with foreign players.

It was a significant incident in the tournament that brought motivation and encouragement to other participating teams as well. Nilanga Wickramarathne (Blues skipper) added that for such high results in this championship their high level of self-esteem and teamwork helped tremendously, especially with a more localised talent base. The Blues unleashed their game skills to their highest capacity in this tournament and over the past seasons, the Blues endured countless game experiences and had faced elimination games on the road. Through it all, they have created a team structure that can withstand under any scenario despite the absence of any foreign players on board. HSC Blacks included a Lithuanian player in their roster but all of them evenly contributed towards victory. They have indeed set a fine example as to how a team should play depending on each other’s potential. In this championship, they heard most of the critics saying that the Blues and Blacks got the best local athletes and that aided them to get through. Especially as preparation for this championship, most of the clubs shuffled their team rosters with new names in it with the announcement of the tournament. As a whole all local players have been able to match their game skills to the extent of foreign players: a great thing for the betterment of Sri Lanka’s basketball future. One believes that it was a great opportunity for the Sri Lanka Basketball Federation to assess the potential of the club division and to infer further new ventures to create a tremendous competitive edge, stacked with foreign athletes. But the Blues won purely and simply with local talent.