The Hindu : Tamil Nadu downs Jharkhand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 28, 2003

Sport

Sport - Basketball

Tamil Nadu downs Jharkhand

By M.C. Raman

Cuttack Dec. 27 . Defending champion, Tamil Nadu, forgetting its opening round shock against Kerala, bounced back to down Jharkhand 91-72 in men's Group A of the 54th senior National basketball championship at the Nehru indoor stadium here on Saturday.

It was a good comeback by a team that suffered from a mental block on Friday because of the absence of Robinson, Shabeer and Sridhar.

Moses Jeevanand clicked and Sukhavaneshwaran and Chandrasekhar aided in scoring with their close shots. It was Chandrasekhar's strong rebound collection that rattled Jharkhand. By half-time Tamil Nadu took a comfortable 43-30 lead.

However, Tamil Nadu struck a bad patch in the third quarter in which Jharkhand's point guard Man Singh set up a good pace and brought Binod Choudhary into high post attack. Amrish Kumar also rattled Tamil Nadu with his three pointers. Jharkhand managed to reduce the lead to 43-48. But Moses and Gopinathan unleashed their set shots to steer Tamil Nadu out of trouble.

Kerala, after a good start, failed to carry the momentum as Railways thrashed the former champion 103-68 victory. It was incredible that Kerala which tied with Railways at half-time at 39 conceded such a worst defeat against a team that was without Riaz Khan, who is with the Indian team in Kuala Lumpur.

It was ball handler Tony Leslie, an ICF player, who turned the match in Railways' favour with his quick passes. He came as a substitute and quickened up the pace with fast breaks. Mihir Pandey and Mahendar Singh exposed the fragile Kerala defence in the second half.

Last night Punjab, last year's runner-up, without Parminder Singh (Sr.), Parminder Singh (Jr.) and Gaggan, had to fight hard to down Uttar Pradesh 80-76 in men's Group B.

Tamil Nadu women qualified for the knock-out stage, crushing Karnataka 72-37, after taking a 41-16 lead at halftime.

The results:

Men: Group A: Tamil Nadu 91 (Sukhavaneshwaran 29, Moses Jeevanand 18, Chandrasekhar 15) bt Jharkhand 72 (Bindo Choudhary 23, Amrish Kumar 22); Railways 103 (Trideep Rai 22, Mahendar Singh 22, Ishlauddin 19) bt Kerala 68 (Shenoy 25, Sunny Thomas 10, Vivek 12,

Abilesh 11).

Group B: Punjab 80 (Harminder Singh 20, Jaspal Singh 17) bt UP 76 (Vipin Singh 20, Satheesa 18). Services 104 (Peter John 21, Phool Singh 14, Harender Singh 16) bt UP 50 (Abhinav Singh 10).

Group F: Pondicherry 43 (Sundaravadivel 18) bt Chandigarh 42 (Nikhil 14). Gujarat 89 (Naik 23) bt Orissa (Ashok 36).

Group D: Haryana 66 (Praveen 21) bt Delhi 57 (Ravinath 19).

Women: Group A: Delhi 74 (Sheeba Maggon 22, Rollin Kuruvilla 14, Divya Singh 13) bt MP 47 (Nanda Jain 13, Meenakshi Rao 12). Chhattisgarh 75 (M. Pushpa 25, Rakhi Rajput 11) bt Punjab 53 (Reena 20, Kamaljeet 14);

Group B: Kerala 85 (Deepa 13, Kamalaxi 12) bt Bengal 54 (Prithi 27).

Group C: Tamil Nadu 72 (Sharmili Mathew 11, Lakshmi Devi 13, Shyamala 20, Adirai 15) bt Karnataka 37 (Reshma Punith 11).

Group D: UP 51 (Sashi Srivastava 23) bt J & K 18.

Group F: Rajasthan 46 (Manisha 18) bt Haryana 43 (Munu 17); Pondicherry 54 (Amitha 13)bt Gujarat 24 (Saini 10).

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