The Hindu : Nishant is Uttaranchal's hero

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 29, 2003

Sport

Sport - Basketball

Nishant is Uttaranchal's hero

By M.C. Raman

Cuttack Dec. 28 . Nishant Kumar's last second basket provided a fitting finale to an exciting encounter as Uttaranchal defeated Railways 86-88 in men's group `A' of the 54th senior National basketball championship at the Nehru indoor stadium here on Sunday.

Uttaranchal fought Railways gallantly and shocked the former champion with a basket by Nishant in the dying seconds. It was Railways, which was leading 86-85 and there were only 24 seconds remaining. But Uttaranchal did not lose heart and gave a stunning blow with a clean set shot.

Uttaranchal set the pace and got off to a brilliant start with a 19-4 lead. Mohit Bhandari was shooting steadily. But Railways recovered through outside shooting by Trideep Rai and Mahendra Singh, who was injured in the second half and that affected the Railways game.

At half-time Railways managed to take a 53-41 lead. But in the third quarter Railways' lead was reduced to 68-67. In the fourth quarter it was neck and neck battle. In the last two minutes Railways led 80-77.

In men's group `B' Karnataka recorded its second win beating U.P. 79-52.

Late last night Karnataka men had it fairly easy against Andhra and won 82-63 in Group B. At half-time Karnataka was 52-31 and Murali Mohan's steady shooting steered the team to victory.

Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Maharashtra and Chandigarh qualified for the knock-out stage in the women's section. Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana and Gujarat moved into the next stage in the men's section.

The results: Men: Group A: Uttaranchal 88 (Jaldeep Daliwal 27, Nishant Kumar 25, Suresh Kumar 16) bt Railways 87 (Trideep Rai28, Bernard Philip 16, Pankaj 13); Group B: Andhra 65 (Srinivasa Rao 19, Srinivas 18) bt UP 56 (A. Singh 14, Sateesh 10); Karnataka 82 (Murali Mohan 29, S. Gowda 24) bt AP 63 (Nikhil Yadav 16, A. Srinivas 14); Group C: MP 66 (Asadulla Khan 20, Kuldeep 18) bt HP 50 (Praveen 17); Group E: Orissa 68 (Ashok Nayak 16) bt J & K 28; Group F: Chandigarh 80 (Mandeep 21) bt Bengal 64 (Sudip 17).

Women: Group A: Delhi 84 (Sheeba Maggon 22, Rollan Kuruvilla 14, Divya Singh 14) bt Chhattisgarh 52 (Aakansha 11); MP 53 (Meenakshi Rao 16) bt Punjab 47 (Kamaljit 14, Paramjit 11); Group B: Railways 116 (Renjini Jose 22, Seema Singh 15) bt Kerala 48 (Anjanna 13, Ambily Thomas 15); Group D: Maharashtra 64 (Nimi Menon 11) bt J & K 16; Group E: Chandigarh 47

(Ranjeeta 15) bt UP 44 (Shatali 22); Group F: Rajasthan 71 (Rukshana 14) bt Gujarat 36 (Nitu 21).

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