Netball

Netball is a fast and enthusiastic game which involves a lot of physical activity like running, jumping, catching and throwing. Much similar to its parent basketball, netball differs a bit in terms of rules, players' composition and equipment used. The game involves no dribbling, no running with the ball which must be passed to the teammate within 3 seconds, and 7 players on the field at the time of play. The ball and the basket are slightly smaller than basketball with no backboard; and the players too are assigned with certain areas of the netball court. James Naismith, the young instructor at the YMCA Training School at Springfield, Massachusetts, was once designated a task of discovering an indoor sport for men- the produce was basketball.

The game had the following ethics- no personal contact, no running with the ball and the goal (basket) should be horizontal and elevated. Senda Berenson who joined the college as a gymnastics instructor thought whether the same would be a good activity for females as well. She then devised women basketball. To assure the game to be womanly she prohibited the players to snatch or bat the ball from the hands of another player. To increase the speed of the game the players were not allowed to hold the ball more than three seconds, they could not even bounce or dribble the ball more than thrice. This version of the game was then named as ‘Netball’ in the 1960s. Today, more than 70 countries worldwide play this game and involve more than 20 million players. 

Netball was one of the 12 sports considered to be included in the 2020 and 2024 Olympics but did not survive the first cut. Netball is played primarily in Commonwealth countries and has been part of the Commonwealth Games since 1998. Netball has never been played in the Summer Olympics, but its federation has been recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC ) in 1995 after twenty years of lobbying period. The netball community sees the absence of netball from the Olympics as an obstacle to the game's global growth, depriving it of media attention and funding.