The Hindu : Chhattisgarh girls stun Delhi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 25, 2003

Sport

Sport - Basketball

Chhattisgarh girls stun Delhi

By M.C. Raman

Photo: Vino John

Anamika Jain (left) of Chhattisgarh proves to be astumbling block for Sheeba Maggon of Delhi in the 20th Federation Cup basketball championship at Vashi in Navi Mumbai on Thursday.

Vashi (Navi Mumbai) April 24. Chhattisgarh fought like a champion to stun National champion Delhi 65-54 and top the women's Group A in the 20th Federation Cup basketball tournament at the Fr. Agnel Technical Education complex here on Thursday. Delhi finished second.

The men's defending champion Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai, had to fight hard to down ONGC, Dehradun, 98-79 and top Group A. IOB overran its rival in the final minutes after allowing it to come close in the third quarter.

Both encounters were interesting and the crowd relished every moment of it. Chhattisgarh's victory has thrown up some questions that still remain unanswered. It is said that Delhi has been losing matches steadily after the Hyderabad National. Then how did it do it against the Railways in the final?

This is what basketball lovers are asking.

Chhatisgarh did not have any tall players to control the rebound, except perhaps Seema Singh. Delhi, made up of mostly internationals, should have utilised their experience to get out of the tight corner. But it got into further trouble because of its erratic shooting and poor rebound collection.

The Chhatisgarh girls hustled them all the time without giving them any chance to shoot freely. That affected the Delhi basketing from the beginning.

When Seema Singh, Anju Lakra, Poonam Singh, Anamika Jain and Venu entered the court nobody would have thought that Chhatisgarh would do it. They crowded the Delhi players and when the latter tried to shoot from outside they missed.

Delhi's prolific scorer Sheeba Maggon tried to bring her team back but found the opponents too strong in defence.

Chhattisgarh got off to a rousing start with a 24-12 lead in the first quarter and at half time led 33-27. In the third quarter it notched up another 18 to Delhi 's eight and in the final quarter it was 14-18.

Western Railway, Mumbai, strengthened by the arrival of Ivy Cherian, led from start to finish against Andhra and topped the women's Group B with a 67-43 victory. Western won all its three matches. Andhra finished second.

It will be Western Railway v Delhi and Andhra v Chhatisgarh in the semifinals on Friday.

The Mumbai team's main scorer is Arnika Gujjar, a steady shooter even under pressure. She picked up her basketing and made it safe for Western in the third quarter when Andhra's shooting sank badly. It could get only five and nine points in the third and fourth quarters.

Andhra depended heavily on the tall Sofi Sam for rebounds as well as baskets. Jetty Jose let go some three pointers. But Western had a clear edge in shooting because of Arnika, Lincy Joseph, Ivy Cherian and Shanti Saldanha, who drove in quickly and kept the attack going right through with clever passes.

Western was in complete control, leading 21-17 in the first quarter, 36-29 at half time, 17-5 in the third and 14-9 in the fourth. It was Western's rebound control and fast attack that rattled Andhra.

Tough for IOB

For IOB it was a tough tie and it had to tackle ONGC, whose survival depended on this victory. And the Dehradun team did fight up to the third quarter. Desraj was brilliant in cutting in for his lay-ups and outside shots. So was Mohit Bhandari. They played havoc with the IOB defence for some time.

That was before Shabeer Ahmed was brought in to mow down the rival. He shored up the IOB game with his rebound collection and basketing. Robinson came in the second quarter as his team was trailing 22-30.

It was only in the second quarter that IOB managed to overtake the rival to finish at 47-43 at half time. When Gopinath entered and prompted the attack IOB began to gain some ground. It slowly stretched the lead to 13 points. In the final quarter Shabeer shattered the rival defence with his brilliant game, reaching out to every ball.

Shivashankar did well in outside shooting and Sridhar, who suffered a groin injury and left the field, scored 16 points in the early stages to keep pace with the rival. Desraj and Mohit provided a big thrust to ONGC's attack. Nishant and Suresh also lent them support.

IOB and Tata Steel finished one and two in Group A and moved into the semifinal knock out.

In a match of only academic interest for third place in women's Group B Bengal beat Kerala 75-57.

TISCO downs ICF

Tata Steel (TISCO), Jamshedpur, might have lost some of its main players to ONGC, but the team did not lack fighting spirit.

It recorded its second win in three matches downing Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, 76-48.

So far Tata Steel has done well. It sets up a good pace and the players are good at under board basketing. Thursday was no exception and ICF was unable to match TISCO as the former's defence was in a bad shape.

Tata's ball handler Man Singh was quick in drive and sharp in passing. Prakash Rao, Wasim Khan and Amrish Kumar cut through the flanks for under board basketing. They exposed the ICF defence.

Tata Steel did not even have enough bench players and it used 57-year-old Sunil Kumar Panda as a substitute. Still the boys fought well and also controlled the rebounds strongly. The Jamshedpur side was fast and with its neat passes managed a 26-19 lead in the first quarter and at half-time was ahead 50-27.

The result:

Men: Group A: Tata Steel 76 (Prakash Rao 25, Wasim Khan 21) bt ICF 48 (Balaji 19, Sikkander Oli Raja 13).

IOB 98 (Shabeer Ahmed 21, Shivashankar 18, Sridhar 16) bt ONGC 79 (Desraj 28, Mohit

Bhandari 17).

Women: Group A: Western Railway 67 (Arnika Gujjar 23, Lincy Joseph 14, Ivy Cherian 10, Sahnti Saldanha 10) bt Andhra 43 (Sofi Sam 18, Jetty Jose 12); Bengal 75 (Rekha Choudhri 20, Prarthana Uthappa 16, Mary Kutty 15) bt Kerala 57 (Ambily Thomas 19, Lajitha 12).

Group B: Chhattisgarh 65 (Venu 14, Anju Lakra 11) bt Delhi 54 (Sheeba Maggon 19, Rameshwari 11).

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