Lady Ballers

There are signs plastered throughout Chennai announcing that the FIBA Asian Women's Qualifiers are going on here now -- I think the winners go on to the FIBA international tournament. Being the basketball enthusiast that I am, I decided to check out what all the signs were about. At Nehru Indoor Stadium, I first saw the Thai beat the Indians by a narrow margin. The quality of basketball from both teams was abysmal, but I guess it's a start given that I never knew that Indian women sported a national basketball team. The tallest girl on the Indian team was maybe 6''1'. The second game was Taiwan vs. China -- much more legitimate basketball. The Chinese are actually pretty good, and after a while, their defense picked up and smothered the Taiwanese. All in all, unique international basketball exposure for a city and country where basketball is just beginning to gain popularity.