The Hindu : Sport : Uzbekistan whips Bangladesh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 10, 2005

Sport

Sport

Uzbekistan whips Bangladesh

Rakesh Rao

GLUED TO THE TARGET: Aleksander Kozlov of Uzbekistan is about to score. — Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

NEW DELHI: Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan cut their pace to half but still dismissed the feeble challenges from Bangladesh and Nepal with ease on the penultimate day of the Middle Asia Zone qualifying basketball championship here on Saturday.

At the sparsely-filled NDMC Indoor Stadium, what with India enjoying a day of rest, Uzbekistan registered its first victory in the five-nation league by cruising to a 130-42 verdict over Bangladesh. Uzbekistan needs to score over Nepal in its last outing on Sunday to join Kazakhstan and India as the qualifiers for the Asian championship to be held in Doha in September.

Warm-up match

Earlier, Kazakhstan warmed up for Sunday's clash against India with a 146-39 whipping of Nepal. The match, between the weakest and seemingly the strongest in the fray, could have seen a much bigger margin of victory had Kazakhstan not slowed down after leading 36-0 at the end of the first quarter.

Uzbekistan, which lost to Kazakhstan and India in its previous matches, understandably lacked the motivation on this day but still sleepwalked to an expected victory. In fact, three of its players were not used at all while the rest took turns at scoring almost at will. In spite of taking things easy, the Uzbeks allowed Bangladesh just five points in the last quarter.

Lone win

The hapless Bangladesh, which finished its engagements with a one-win-three-loss record for the fourth place, once again relied on the lanky Mohammad Raseduzzaman to do the scoring.

Kazakhstan towered over Nepal before winning by over a 100-point margin. Barring top-scorer Ruslan Gilyazutdinov and Roman Muravyov, none of the players played in all quarters.

In the absence of any challenge from Nepal, the Kazakhstan players almost scored by turns. For Nepal, Rupak Gurang and Rabindra Majarjan did all the scoring, that included a couple of three-pointers in the final quarter.

The scores:

Uzbekistan 130 (Anton Martinenko 27, Aleksander Kozlov 25, Ildar Safarov 21, Vladimir Istochnikov 21) bt Bangladesh 42 (Mohammad Raseuzzaman 20, Mosstafa Kamal 11).

Kazakhstan 146 (Ruslan Gilyazutdinov 27, Roman Muravyov 26, Alexander Derbush 16, Anton Ponomarev 14, Ivan Nechaev 12, Sergey Vdovin 10, Vyacheslav Pashkevich 10, Vitaly Lopatin 10) bt Nepal 39 (Rupak Gurang 23, Rabindra Maharjan 16).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport