India registered two facile victories on the opening day of the South Asian Basketball Championship (SABA) here on Friday.
In the morning session, the host defeated Nepal 90-37, before brushing aside Bangladesh 122-39. Neither rival offered any resistance and both matches were all but wrapped up at the end of the first-quarter itself.
Bangladesh was expected to push the favourite, but the encounter was a mismatch both in size and skill. The towering Indian duo of captain Rikin Pethani and Annadurai Aravind collected rebounds at both ends of the floor at will. When either of the two needed rest, Akashdeep Hazra — a mighty figure at nearly seven feet — kept up the pressure.
The forwards — led by Karnataka’s A. Arvind — took advantage of some poor marking. The shorter Bangladeshis simply had no answers.
Pethani’s men, for the most part, kept it simple in attack. It was the few highlight moments, however, which brought the loudest cheers.
Prasanna Venkatesh, who came on in the second quarter, dazzled by leaping high and converting a reverse alley-oop. Gurvinder Singh, a Ludhiana Basketball Academy graduate, matched Venkatesh with two double-handed dunks of his own. India’s first fixture, against Nepal, witnessed similar one-way traffic. The match itself may not have happened, if not for the timely intervention from the Basketball Federation of India (BFI).
The Nepal side, whose preparation was hampered after the recent earthquake damaged its primary stadium (Dasarath Indoor Stadium in Kathmandu), could not afford the trip to India. The BFI president K. Govindraj arranged for sponsors to pay for their travel.
The results: Bangladesh 76 (Mithun Sarkan 24, Mithun Kumar Biswas 24) bt Maldives 65 (Mohamed Zilaal 26).
India 90 (Narender Grewal 17, A. Arvind 13, Prasanna Venkatesh 13) bt Nepal 37 (Yukta Ram Bhakta 10).
Sri Lanka 100 (Praneeth Udumalagala 28, Thimothi Thineshkanth 17) bt Bhutan 57 (Chimi Wangchuk 12, Yarab Singye 10).
India 122 (A. Arvind 19, Pratham Singh 15, Prasanna Venkatesh 14, Rikin Pethani 12, Akashdeep Hazra 12, Gurvinder Singh 11) bt Bangladesh 39 (Mithun Sarkan 12, Aziz Tareq 11).
