Doha (Qatar), Jun 20, 2022, IANS

Doha (Qatar), June 20 (IANS) In a boost for Indian basketball, young player Kushal Singh has been named in the All-Star Five of FIBA U16 Asian Basketball Championship 2022 which ended here on Sunday.

Kushal Singh was the star performer for India as the team finished fifth, beating South Korea 90-80 in the classification match on Sunday. This is India's best-ever performance by an Indian team in the U16 Asian Championships Qatar 2022. India had lost to eventual winners Japan in the quarter-finals before finishing fifth.

"Kushal Singh of India among the top scorers of the #FIBAU16Asia. #TeamIndia made us all proud by their outstanding performance in the tournament and coming 5th after defeating Korea," the Indian Embassy in Doha tweeted on Sunday night.

The 2022 MVP and top scorer Yuto Kawashima of Japan headlines a stacked All-Star Five. The others picked as the best of the best of the tournament besides Kushal Singh are Suguru Ishiguchi of Japan, Nic Book of New Zealand and Rocco Zikarsky of Australia.

"India had a historic campaign in the U16 Asian Championship, making it to the Quarter-Finals for the first time and finishing at 5th place and a big factor was the play of Kushal Singh. The 1.95M (6'5") forward led India in scoring with 22.6 points per game (also 3rd among all players) and grabbed 8.4 rebounds per game. Kushal had two of the highest-scoring games in the competition with 31 points against Qatar and Japan," said a report on the FIBA Asia page.