Champions find a way to victory, despite the setbacks.
Defending champion Uttarakhand, without some of its leading players, warded off a stiff threat from former champion Railways 68-62 in a thriller of a men’s league match in the 64th IMG Reliance National basketball championship at the Thyagaraj Indoor Stadium here on Wednesday.
It was an impressive fare from Uttarakhand that was without the services of players like Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Trideep Rai, Mohit Bhandari, Murali Krishna, etc., owing to varied reasons including injury.
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The team was well served by the towering Amritraj Pal Singh as he top-scored with 25 points.
The team kept close to its opponent at 28-26 at half time after being on par at the end of the first quarter at 15-15.
In the third quarter, Railways, coached by Ram Kumar looked to be pulling away as it took a 45-39 lead.
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However, in the climax, the seasoned Riyazuddin rose to the occasion with his calm and calculated approach for Uttarakhand. He converted a flurry of eight free throws at the crunch that tilted the balance in favour of the champion team.
Yadwinder Singh also played his part well, particularly in the second half when he was his usual energetic self.
Railways lacked the firepower to pull it off against a depleted side, and tended to rely a lot on Gagandeep Singh.
Once Gagandeep who scored 20 points, was denied the supply of passes with a compact defence, especially through the experienced S. Sridhar and to some extent Shabeer Ahmed, Railways lost its way.
In the women’s section, Tamil Nadu rode on an all-round performance by Apoorva Muralinath, who top-scored with 26 points, to outclass Maharashtra, 63-20, after having led 40-7 at half-time.
It was a shame that one of the best teams in the women’s section, Maharashtra could not put up a good team, perhaps because the players have been busy with their examinations.
The results (league): Men: Group A: Uttarakhand 68 (Amritpal Singh 25, Riyazuddin 16, Yadwinder Singh 13) bt Railways 62 (Gagandeep Singh 20, Rakesh Mishra 10).
Chhattisgarh 69 (Ajay Pratap Singh 24, Karan Pal Singh 24) bt Delhi 46 (Praveen Doban 14, Vinay Kaushik 10, Nikhil Kumar 10).
Group B: Punjab 92 (Ranbir Singh 15, Amritpal Singh 14, Gurvinder Singh 14, Jagdeep Singh 14) bt Andhra Pradesh 44 (G.V. Reddy 13); Services 101 (Gopal Ram 17, S. M. Settu 16, Dalip Kumar 13, Narender Grewal 11, Jairam 11, Manu Thomas 10) bt Rajasthan 57 (Prashant Singh 22, Vinod Kumar 10).
Women: Group A: Railways 68 (Anju Lakra 13, Manisha Dange 12, Krishan Radha 12, S. Kokila 12) bt West Bengal 40 (S. Oraon 11).
Group B: Punjab 79 (Nagma Mirza 16, Kirandeep Kaur 15, Harjeet Kaur 13, Nirmal Kaur 13) bt Madhya Pradesh 59 (Jhilik Roy 24, Sakshi Pandey 15); Tamil Nadu 63 (Apoorva Muralinath 26, Soniya Joy 14, R. Ramya 14) bt Maharashtra 20.