Kerala basketball takes a big leap with ‘Starting Five’ tie-up

P.J. Sunny has ruled over Kerala basketball for nearly 50 years, as the State association’s president, secretary and as a prominent coach but the 84-year-old was amazed at some of the former players who have risen to become corporate hotshots.

“I didn’t know our sport had so many bigwigs. At the Rebound (a collective of former players) meetings, I keep telling players that they should think of giving back something to the sport that made them,” said Sunny, a former chairman of BFI’s national selection committee, at a city hotel here on Saturday.

Some of the former players have now formed the Starting Five Sports Management Private Limited and have joined hands with the Kerala Basketball Association as its commercial partner.

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The tie-up, which was officially launched on Saturday, promises to lift the sport in a big way. New leagues for seniors, colleges and schools will be coming up, there will serious work at the grassroots-level and new technology, backed by AI. This will offer detailed player stats and video clips, which will be introduced in every sphere of the sport to help coaches, players and teams. Kerala is probably the first State in the country to have such a tie-up in basketball.

Jacob Purackal, Koshy Abraham and Feroz Meeran (all directors), Aji Kumar Nair, R. Anilkumar and Joseph C. Joseph – almost all of them are State or university players – are the promoters of the Starting Five.

Viju Jacob, the executive chairman of Synthite Industries who launched the Starting Five’s new logo, offered his support for its initiatives and film director Sibi Malayil, a former basketball player, spoke about how the game had helped him in life.

Basketball Federation of India president Aadhav Arjuna (online from the USA), KBA president Manohara Kumar, former India captain C.V. Sunny, Muthoot Fincorp director Thomas George Muthoot and Meeran Group chairman Navaz Meeran were among those who spoke during the event.