The Hindu : Sport : Indian spikers strike gold

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 04, 2004

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Indian spikers strike gold

By Our Special Correspondent

Indian players celebrate after defeating Pakistan in the volleyball final.

ISLAMABAD, APRIL 3. Indian volleyball lived up to its new found reputation, as the team kept its cool amidst thunderous support for the home team in winning the gold with a well-earned 25-18, 23-25, 23-25, 25-18, 15-10 score in the final, in the ninth SAF Games at the Liaquat Gymnasium here on Saturday.

Subba Rao in particular stood a lot taller than his usually imposing height of 6' 10'', as he played a vibrant game, especially in the climax in winning more than half the points in the last set.

The Indian team started well in winning the first set without much of a contest, but Pakistan played a spirited game particularly through Ihsan Ullah Khan, and did not allow much of a lead for the Indian team in capturing the second and third sets.

The Indian double-block proved inadequate and erratic to stop the surging Pakistani attack.

The fact that the Indian players made crucial mistakes, like Sanjay Kumar burying a jump serve into the net at 22-23 in the third set, did not help the team's cause.

However, when it mattered, the Indian team played like a champion outfit, in silencing the home crowd which started melting away as defeat stared in front midway through the final set.

It was the first win for an Indian volleyball team over Pakistan in Pakistan, and coach G. E. Sridharan was a happy man.

"We had gaps in our block after the second set. We changed strategy later and it worked.

"The team played very well throughout the championship. Pakistan played very well, and gave us a much better fight than what it had managed six months ago'', said Sridharan, who picked Subba Rao, Tom Joseph and Kapil Dev for special praise.

Indian swimmers make more splash

Meanwhile, the Indian domination continued with a little less flourish in swimming as the team collected two of the four gold medals on offer this day, all of them with record timing.

T.A. Sujith added the 100-metre freestyle gold to his collection with a 53.53, that erased Sebastian Xavier's 53.95 set in Chennai in 1995.

The Indian 4 x 100-metre freestyle relay team of Rahul Batra, Amar Muralidharan, Benoy Sebastian and Sujith took the gold at 3:39.40, in beating the previous mark of 3:40.73 set in Kathmandu in 1999.

Four golds

in shooting

In shooting, there was none to question the Indian supremacy as Sushma Rana and Satguru Das won the sport pistol and free rifle prone events, even as India swept all the four gold medals on offer, including two in the team events.

Sushma had shot a brilliant 582 recently in the World Cup in Bangkok, but a 571 was good enough to beat the previous record of 558.

Sushma, the petite sister of Jaspal Rana, eventually won the gold with a whopping 25.5 point margin over Sri Lanka's K. G. N. Perera.

Saroja Kumari Juthu missed the bronze to another Lankan, Shyamalie Wijesooriya by 0.1 point.

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