His dad and mom named him after legendary cricketer Lala Amarnath, and Amarnath Nagarajan was a great batter and a wise off-spinner at school.
The teen, from Periyakulam in Tamil Nadu’s Theni District, was adept in hockey and athletics too.
However as soon as he took up basketball, at 16, all the opposite sports activities took a again seat. And like Lala, a former Indian captain, Amarnath additionally went on to guide the nation in basketball.
He was additionally part of the historic Indian workforce that performed on the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the one time an Indian basketball workforce featured within the Summer time Video games.
“We obtained the possibility to play in Moscow very unexpectedly. Although India completed fifth within the 1979 Asia Cup, the Olympic qualification occasion, 4 groups that completed forward of us joined the US-led boycott of the Olympics and all of the sudden, we had certified for Moscow. We knew we have been nowhere close to the opposite groups however we loved the expertise,” stated Amarnath, the Indian captain on the 1982 Asian Video games, in a chat with Sportstar on the Regional Sports activities Centre right here on Saturday night.
Now a Coimbatore-based sanyasi, who goes by the identify Swami Nateshananda Saraswati, Amarnath was the chief visitor for Group Rebound’s basketball gamers’ reunion right here.
Expectedly, India misplaced all its seven matches – together with three within the group section – within the Olympics however Amarnath performed in opposition to some legends in Moscow. There was Brazil’s Oscar Schmidt, the main scorer in Olympic historical past with greater than 1000 factors, and USSR’s Sergey Belov, who received 4 Olympic medals and lit the Flame in Moscow.
“Oscar was about our top (6’2) however he was taking pictures like something,” stated Amarnath. “And on the Video games, the gamers have been all very pleasant.”
Regardless of making their Olympic debut, Amarnath revealed that the large stage didn’t shock the Indians or make them nervous.
“We performed within the 60,000-capacity stadium, it was like enjoying on the Eden Backyard however indoors… simply think about how it is going to be. Whether or not you have a look at the scale, pace or expertise, we weren’t a match for any of the groups. We knew what the end result could be, we took it as a golden alternative,” stated the 70-year-old.
“And nearly each participant within the USSR and different groups had performed 200 main worldwide matches. We had performed lower than 20 once we began in Moscow. India completed final within the 12-team occasion, and not using a win.”
It has been 44 years since India performed within the Olympics. Is he shocked that the nation has nonetheless not obtained again to the large stage?
“No,” stated Amarnath. “The Olympics is for the highest 12. Again then our world rating was above 50, now we’re 82. How can or not it’s a shock. They’re making a whole lot of plans to enhance however until a person participant matches the opponent’s particular person participant, you can’t make any progress.”
Ten years in the past, Amarnath retired as assistant common supervisor from the State Financial institution of India and in 2019, nearly a yr after his spouse’s loss of life, he turned a sanyasi after studying many non secular books.
“Slowly, I started seeing issues in the precise perspective. However a basketballer’s life is extra disciplined than a sanyasi’s. The hardest, nevertheless, is the banker’s life.”