NETBALL: HOOPS AND DREAMS

Published December 5, 2021
The world over, netball is seen as more of a female sport but Pakistan is proud to have both female and male netball outfits that have featured in international championships also | Photos courtesy PNF
The world over, netball is seen as more of a female sport but Pakistan is proud to have both female and male netball outfits that have featured in international championships also | Photos courtesy PNF

The claps, the snapping of fingers, the catchy, cheerleading chants and slogans echo in the spacious gymnasium of Karachi’s National Coaching Centre. In the middle, teams fight it out for the Girls Netball Championship, organised by the Pakistan Netball Federation (PNF).

To a novice, the game, with players running around the court as they pass the ball around and take shots at the hoops at either end, would look like basketball. But netball is another sport entirely. Just like all sports played with a racket are not the same.

If you study the game closely, you would realise that it has seven players per side while basketball has five. Also, unlike basketball, there is no dribbling of the ball here. The players move it along through passes. No one gets to keep possession of the ball for over three seconds. The hoops, too, do not have wooden backboards them. They are just poles with baskets. The players are wearing bibs over their team jerseys with the letters GK for goalkeeper, GA for goal attack, GD for goal defence, C for centre, WA for wing attack and GS for goal shooter, inscribed on them in bold.

Young Zainab Shujaat, who plays for the Elite Academy team, wears the GD bib over her light blue kit. She was introduced to netball at school some five years ago. “At the time I was more into athletics. I enjoyed running and practising high jumps. I also liked playing throw ball. But then when I started playing netball, I realised that the game had all-in-one. It included running, jumping and throwing the ball,” Zainab explains.

“I liked netball so much that my other sporting interests got sidelined,” she adds.

Zainab has played netball nationally as well as internationally. “In 2019, I represented Pakistan in the South Asian Girls’ Under-16 Championship in Nepal. I was the team captain,” she says.

From schools to departments, netball is flourishing in Pakistan. But government funding and sponsorship is needed to help it develop further as well as to build teams that are at par with international outfits that feature at the Commonwealth Games

There is also Hafsa Mudassar, who dons a bib with GA inscribed on it over her grey and maroon Institute of Business Management (IoBM) kit. A student of BBA, 19-year-old Hafsa is her team captain. She has been playing netball for some nine years now. Her entire family, with the exception of one little brother, plays netball.

In fact, her father is the president of PNF but she does not play the game because of that. Her mother Humaira Huma used to play for Sindh and the Army until she retired some two years ago. But she doesn’t play netball because of that either. She plays because she loves watching her paternal aunt play.

“My phupho Quratulain is an incredible player. She is also the captain of the Pakistan women’s team and it was her game that inspired me,” says Hafsa, who has herself so far been a part of one international tour in 2018 to Singapore. “But there are players even younger than me who have represented Pakistan abroad two or three times,” she says.

About the sport itself, Hafsa says that netball is a major sport in all Commonwealth and European countries but it is not yet an Olympic sport. “There are talks currently going on regarding this with World Netball. We hope that these will bear fruit and we will see netball in the 2032 Brisbane Olympics,” she says. Still young, she dreams of being a part of the Pakistan team that year.

Netball, the world over is seen as more of a female sport but Pakistan is proud to have both female and male netball outfits that have featured in international championships also.

The world over, netball is seen as more of a female sport but Pakistan is proud to have both female and male netball outfits that have featured in international championships also | Photos courtesy PNF
The world over, netball is seen as more of a female sport but Pakistan is proud to have both female and male netball outfits that have featured in international championships also | Photos courtesy PNF

The Pakistan Netball Federation (PNF) came about in 1999. But netball was being played here in schools and colleges before that, too. PNF’s President, Mudassar Arain, who also happens to be the secretary general of the South Asian Netball Federation, says that he first saw it being played as a proper sport during the XVI Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998.

“That’s when I approached the International Netball Federation, known as World Netball now. I told them that we play netball in Pakistan but we don’t have a representative body for it in our country,” he says.

Soon Arain was able to build a structure for netball here. He held talent hunts and made up teams. “We started proper netball activity by organising championships. This was followed by applying for affiliation to the International Netball Federation, who forwarded our case to the Asian Netball Federation, known as Netball Asia now. There, after scrutiny of our documents, the general body gave its approval for Pakistan by sending back their ‘no objection’ to the International Netball Federation, whose congress approved our international affiliation,” he says.

Holding its first national women’s championship soon after, PNF sent a Pakistan women’s team to Sri Lanka for a three-match series in October of 1999, followed by another three-match series in Maldives, with the aim of providing the players some international exposure. They then invited Sri Lanka for a return tour to Pakistan, which took place in June of 2000. Next, PNF sent its women’s team to Cardiff in England and Glasgow, Scotland in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

“Where we looked to provide them international exposure, our women’s team today has featured in the Asia Championship, toured Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Australia and the UK,” says Arain.

By 2003, PNF also formed its first men’s national team. And in 2004, more progress was seen in netball in Pakistan when many departments also made their teams. “The first of these was Wapda. Now we also have netball teams in the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, Navy, Police, Railways, HEC, etc.,” says Arain. He explains that there are some 16 university teams that play under the HEC. The cream of players from there also make up a Pakistan juniors team.

“This way, the various teams, including provincial teams — that also include AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan — the departments, the education institutions and boards’ teams make up around 16 to 17 outfits, which take on each other during our national championships,” says Arain.

“This year saw the 20th National Netball Championship,” he adds. “All in all, we hold around eight mega events, including the women’s and men’s national championships, the national inter-provincial championships for men and women, the national inter-departmental championships and the national beach championship, which is held every two years.”

Besides holding championships, PNF also organises national coaching and umpiring courses. They also received a grant of 4.5 million Australian dollars from the Australian Sports Commission for a development programme that ran from 2009 to 2012. During that period, they took netball to 32 urban and rural cities in Pakistan — for coaching, training and the holding of events. “We also distributed netball poles, nets, bibs and balls donated by the Australian Sports Commission to the sports clubs and schools for the promotion of the game.” says Arain.

The Pakistan men’s netball team toured India in 2005 and also won the three-match series there by 2-1. Also in 2005, the India’s women’s team came here for another three-match series, in which they were beaten 2-1 by the hosts.

“Our women have taken bronze in the South Asian Beach Games in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, in 2011. Our men’s team has won the silver medal from the Asian Championship in Malaysia in 2016 and 2017,” he says with pride.

Arain is sure that Pakistan’s national netball teams have it in them to qualify for the Commonwealth Games but he says that they need funding and sponsorship along with a qualified foreign coach.

“The Pakistan government has hardly done anything for netball here. Earlier, we used to receive an annual grant from the government, which has been closed now. Last year, we got one million rupees for the holding of a national championship from the Pakistan Sports Board, but we need more than double of that for holding a single tourney. We need 1.4 million for just the travel and daily allowances of the teams.

“But still the championships happen. The shortfall we pay from our pockets or we go looking for sponsorship. Sometimes, we have also borrowed money from friends,” he says.

The writer is a member of staff.
She tweets @HasanShazia

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 5th, 2021

Opinion

Editorial

Judiciary’s SOS
Updated 28 Mar, 2024

Judiciary’s SOS

The ball is now in CJP Isa’s court, and he will feel pressure to take action.
Data protection
28 Mar, 2024

Data protection

WHAT do we want? Data protection laws. When do we want them? Immediately. Without delay, if we are to prevent ...
Selling humans
28 Mar, 2024

Selling humans

HUMAN traders feed off economic distress; they peddle promises of a better life to the impoverished who, mired in...
New terror wave
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

New terror wave

The time has come for decisive government action against militancy.
Development costs
27 Mar, 2024

Development costs

A HEFTY escalation of 30pc in the cost of ongoing federal development schemes is one of the many decisions where the...
Aitchison controversy
Updated 27 Mar, 2024

Aitchison controversy

It is hoped that higher authorities realise that politics and nepotism have no place in schools.