The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : State-level volleyball tournament from today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 14, 2004

Sport

Sport - Volleyball

State-level volleyball tournament from today

COIMBATORE, APRIL 13 . The 36th Open Tamil Nadu State-level R. Ramaswamy Memorial invitation volleyball tournament, organised by the Aquapump Sports Club, will begin at the VOC Park volleyball courts here on Wednesday.

Indian Bank (IB), Indian Overseas Bank (IOB), Income Tax (IT), Integral Coach Factory (ICF), Southern Railways and Sports Hostel of Excellence (SHE), all from Chennai, are the teams that will fight it out for top honours during the five-day tourney. Last year, it was just the second string teams that were fielded as most of the players were either busy attending the Indian camp or taking part in inter-departmental tournaments.

For Indian Bank, Coimbatore has been a happy hunting ground. It is the only team to have tasted much success. It has won at least half-a-dozen times here and looks geared up to add one more to its kitty. With experienced Indian stalwarts like Manoharan, Sayeekrishnan, Afzal Baig and Muthuraj in the team, it has a bright chance to lift the cup.

But, the IOB players are sure to give their IB rivals a run for their money. Rajesh, Kumaran, Natarajan (who was part of the Indian team that won the SAF Games gold in Islamabad) and Sivabalan (who represented the country in the junior world championship) will further boost the team's chances.

ICF is the other team that has the talent to topple the best. It has both juniors and seniors in the list and is trained by veteran stalwart Royce Dhinkaran. Likewise, SHE has a bunch of young guns, who have crossed swords with the seniors on many an occasion and have also won most of them.

But that doesn't mean Southern Railways and Income Tax are no fighters. Southern Railways has SAF Games setter Kapil Dev and Sunil Kumar, while Income Tax has a good crowd of stars. All the six teams in fray, on their given day, can cause a upset or two. Only time will tell.

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