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Basketball
By M.C. Raman
Prakash Rao of Tata Steel (left) and Sridhar of IOB fight for possession of the ball in the 20th Federation Cupbasketball championship at Vashi in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday.
IOB's ace, Robinson, is here. But he did not play as he is nursing a muscle pull. Obviously, IOB is keeping its reserve for the final assault. As a result its scoring percentage has dropped. It had a starting problem against ICF on Tuesday, but today the champion squad got off to a great start taking a 23-9 lead in the first quarter. Sridhar gave it a head start with his jump shots from the flanks. From then on IOB kept itself ahead, though the Tata players did set up good pace. IOB led 39-24 at half time and maintained a 13-point lead from then on. Tata's short ball handler, Man Singh, was sharp and quick, but the Jamshedpur players spilled the ball while taking hurried shots as they were always under pressure because of Shabeer Ahmed, Swaminathan, Sundar and Chandrasekar who were breathing down their neck. Prakash Rao and Ramasare Yadav, however, tried to cut through the flanks and they succeeded in doing that in the second quarter. But Shabeer controlled the rebound strongly and Gopinath moved up fast for setting up passes. And though the Tamil Nadu players too missed shots under pressure IOB did not give up the lead at any point of time. With this second win IOB is almost assured of a knockout semifinal berth. This was Tata Steel's first defeat in two matches. In a women's three-team Group `A' match, Chattisgarh led from start to finish to beat Madhya Pradesh 65-34 and qualified for the semifinal knockout. MP has bowed out of the race, having lost both its matches. AP women trounce Bengal Earlier, Andhra Pradesh women came from behind to notch up their second victory in Group B as Bengal, after a good start, fell apart under pressure to lose 37-65. Arnika Gujjar, a prolific scorer for the Railways, steered Western Railway to a comfortable 70-51 victory over Kerala State Electricity Board, in another women's Group B encounter. Both Andhra and Western Railway having scored their second victories have moved into the semifinal knockout stage. Their success is not surprising. In height, setting up pace and scoring they were far superior to other sides in the group. Under pressure the Kerala girls missed even easy baskets and trailed 8-14 and 21-35 at half time. After that they could not match Arnika's superb shooting. Ball handler and shooter Shanti Saldanha set the pace for the Railway attack in the beginning, but later Arnika took over and she was steady and sharp in hitting the hoop. By the third quarter Western was ahead 53-35 and then it was a total rout for KSEB. The Andhra-Bengal tie was quite interesting in the beginning. Bengal basketted better and the Andhra team came under pressure as its passing and shooting went haywire. Trailing 13-19 in the first quarter, Andhra managed to surge ahead at half time (28-25) and then it controlled the rebound superbly. Sofi Sam and Somini were in control and Bengal's flow of shots was arrested. In the third quarter Andhra crushed Bengal with 21 points against Bengal's seven. Army beats Hyderabad Late on Tuesday night, the opening day, there were two interesting matches. Vijay Bank, Bangalore made a close call on the Indian Army, which recorded its second straight win on Wednesday morning, beating Hyderabad District, 70-47, in men's Group B. The bank men were complaining that the reason for their defeat was the `Nivia' ball that was used in the game. Said Vijaya Bank coach Dilip after the match: "We hardly play with Nivia ball. They only told us in the managers' meeting about the ball. They could have told us well in advance.'' This is indeed a major problem and the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) would do well to tackle it. On Wednesday, the Army squad had it easy against the Hyderabad team, which actually put up better show today. It, however, did not have the defence to stop the Indian Army, which was too fast for them. Harendra Singh and G.R.L. Prasad broke into the Hyderabad zone easily and basketted at will. The two gave the Army squad a 35-24 lead at half time. The Hyderabad attack improved when Amruth Raj came in as the ball handler. Nihal Yadav moved in for the kill and Hyderabad managed to keep pace with its rival, scoring to some extent in the first half. But in the second half Indian Army began to press hard. Harendra gave Army the real thrust in the third quarter by moving in close for the set shots. It was Hyderabad's loose zone defence that made it struggle and at the other end it did not have the outside shooting strength to match the rival's basketing prowess. By the third quarter Army had stretched the lead to 50-33. And after that it ran over the rival comfortably. Late on Tuesday night, Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai, the defending champion, was trailing 32-39 at half time against Integral Coach Factory, Chennai. However, the champion side fought back to win 67-59. IOB did not have the services of Robinson. Without much points coming from outside shooting, IOB was trailing and ICF set up a good pace to score well from the outside. Rajan and Arul Venkatesh were ICF's main scorers. But IOB rallied strongly through Sundar and Shabir Ahmed and tightened up the defence. However, IOB's real worry is not the showing at this tourney. The team has more reasons to be worried over the offer of good jobs from the ONGC for its three main players. Robinson is being offered double the salary that he is getting in IOB plus excellent allowances that ONGC cricketers like Kaif are getting. Shabeer Ahmed and Sridhar are also in the ONGC list. "We know it is a good offer. If he wants to go he can go. We are not stopping him," said TNBA Secretary Selvaraj. But the TNBA has to build a new team and the Secretary is confident that the Association would be able to field a strong team without these three. The results: men: group B: Indian Army 70 (Harendra Singh 25, G.R.L. Prasad 22) bt Hyderabad Dt. 47 (Nihal Yadav 17). Group A: IOB 67 (Sundar 12, Shabir Ahmed 17) bt ICF 59 (R. Rajan 19, Arul Venkatesh 17). IOB 65 (Sridhar 17, Sundar 11) bt TISCO 49 (Prakash Rao 17, Ramasare Yadav 18). Women: group B: AP 65 (Sofi Sam 25, Binu 12) bt Bengal 37 (Prarthana Uthappa 18); Western Railway 70 (Arnika Gujjar 23, Lincy Joseph 14, Santhi Saldanha 10) bt KSEB 51 (Deepa George 10, Ambily Thomas 12). Group A: Chattisgarh 65 (Poonam Singh 17, Anju Lakra 16) bt MP 34 (Meenakshi Rao 13, Nanda Jain 12).
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