Bangladesh win 3-on-3 title
![Victorious Bangladesh cagers pose with the trophy after beating Maldives in the last match of the 1st Citycell South Asian 3-on-3 Basketball Championships at the Dhanmondi Basketball Gymnasium yesterday. PHOTO: STAR](https://tds-images.thedailystar.net/upload/gallery/image/arts/bangladesh-cagers.jpg)
Bangladesh became unbeaten champions of the First Citycell South Asian 3-on-3 Basketball Championships which concluded in Dhaka yesterday. Bangladesh beat Maldives by 20-9 points in the last match of the round robin stage at the Dhanmondi Basketball Gymnasium to lift the title.
Bangladesh finished top with eight points while Sri Lanka finished runners-up with seven. Maldives won the Fair Play award. Nepal and Bhutan were the other two participating teams in the two-day meet.
The last match started one hour after the scheduled time as the chief guest of the occasion, Advocate Kamrul Islam, the food minister, arrived 50 minutes late.
But once the game started, it finished in a flash as Bangladesh raced to maximum points (20) within 8.52 minutes, with more than a minute remaining on the clock. Well, that is the nature of the shortest format of basketball, which some people call the twenty20 of basketball.
Played in one half of the court, the game is between two teams of three players each who jostle to cage the ball in one basket. Ten minutes is the stipulated time, but if one team reaches 20 points before that time, the game is over. Less rigorous than standard basketball, this format gives more reward to those who have greater body skills and are less reliant on their height.
“This format is growing popular in recent times and it has been included in the Asian Beach Games, Indoor Asian Games and it is a target of FIBA (Federation of International Basketball Association) to spread the game. So we (SABA) have staged this international tournament for the first time here, even though three-on-three has been played quite a few times in domestic league,” said AK Sarker, the recently re-elected general secretary of SABA (South Asian Basketball Association) and also the general secretary of the Bangladesh Basketball Federation.
The chief guest distributed prizes among the teams where president of BBF Mostafa Jalal Mohiudiin, secretary general of Bangladesh Olympic Association Syed Shahed Reza, head of corporate affairs of Citycell Taslim Ahmed were also present.
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