Malaysia poised to become wheelchair basketball prowess despite losing gold

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite missing the gold medal once again this time, Malaysia can now be seen as one of the major powerhouses of wheelchair basketball in Southeast Asia region, besides Thailand.
National coach, Abbas Aghakoucheki Hossein said that the team had improved by leaps and bounds compared to their previous performance in the 2015 Singapore ASEAN Para Games.
With this, he noted that Malaysia should now begin talent scouting in order to get additional players of various types.
“As a professional coach, I found that Malaysia has improved very well, and must continue this way. If we can continue, in the next Asean Para Games, Malaysia can become a strong team.
“As far as I’m concerned, Malaysia played very well today. But in this situation (vs Thailand), we don’t have tall players, we have small and medium players.
“It’s about time to find new talent and expose them to competitions,” he told reporters after the Malaysia-Thailand meet today.
Abbas, who was the Iranian coach for the Iran Rio Paralympic team, believed that Malaysia with a population of over 30 million, would find disabled talents who wanted to be part of the national team.
Malaysia lost to Thailand, 56-70 in the gold medal match and with the victory, Thailand retained their gold medal in wheelchair basketball team event for the six consecutive times.
Malaysia have to be contented with silver and the Philippines settled for bronze after defeating Myanmar 49-41 in the bronze medal match earlier. The wheelchair basketball event were held in a round robin format.
Meanwhile team captain Ahmad Nazri Hamzah said it was high time to scout for new talents, of aged 23 and below, to participate in international tournaments and those keen could go to Kampung Pandan here (Paralympic Excellence Centre) or meet with the coach or related parties. — Bernama