The inauguaral FIBA Asian Under-16 Girls’ Basketball championship is set to be worked off on Saturday (28) in Pune, India. A contingent of 15 players with three officials scheduled to take wings on Friday in order to take part in the tournament at the time this edition went to print. The tournament is organised and conducted by Federation of International Basketball Association.

Twelve countries take part in this tournament and are pooled into two groups. China, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong and India are pooled in group ‘A’ while Korea, Japan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand and Kazakhstan comprise Group ‘B’.

In the first round, each team has to play against the countries in the group and the top two teams will cruise to semi finals.

China team considered to be the hot favourite to win the title this year.

But it seems to be a wide open tournament as Korea, Chinese Taipei and Japan consist in formidable players in their respective teams and look for a major breakthrough.

Sri Lanka Basketball Federation (SLBF) selected the players under the supervision of Sri Lanka School Basketball Association.

The contingent consist players from St. Joseph’s College-Nugegoda, Holy Family Convent-Dehiwala, Bishop College-Colombo, Sirimavo Bandaranaiyake College-Colombo, Dharmasoka College-Ambalangoda, St. Lawrence’s College-Colombo, Maliyadewa Balika Vidyalaya, Holy Family Convent-Kurunegala, Overseas International school-Colombo and Janadipathi Balika Vidyalaya.

Shayami Adikari of Holy Family convent, Manager, Prasanna Jayasinghe, Coach and Susil Udukumbura, Assistant Coach are the team officials who are included in the contingent.

"We commenced our practices last year, focusing the event at the "Three on Three" tournament, which worked off in July, 2009. We were able to qualify for quarter finals in that tournament. We hope we have good chances against Malaysia and Thailand in the 1st round." Said the coach, Prasanna Jayasinghe.

The disappointing factor is that Sri Lanka miss out four key players due to forth coming Ordinary Level examination which will be held in the middle of December. They are Jayani Nugi, Sanduni Perera, Suwairi Fernando and Krishani Fernando.

With the finale of this event, the Federation of International Basketball Association is planning to rank the teams according to their merits. The top 6 teams will be pooled to Level One Championship while the rest of the teams to Level Two Championship.