The Hindu : Sport / Basketball : ONGC proves its class

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 29, 2004

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Sport - Basketball

ONGC proves its class

By Our Sports Reporter

COIMBATORE, MAY 28. ONGC (Dehradun) confirmed its superiority with a resounding 85-68 victory over a jaded Customs and Central Excise (Kochi) in the opening semifinal league of the 46th all-India basketball tournament for men, for the Nachimuthu Gounder Cup, at the VOC Park Corporation sports complex courts here today.

The first two quarters were keenly contested. In fact, it took the teams at least a couple of minutes to open the scoring in the first phase of the game. ONGC and Customs were level at 35 at the breather.

However, in the second phase, it was ONGC all the way with Sridhar and Shabeer playing an all-round game. The dynamic duo surprised the Customs defence time and again with its brilliant run from both flanks. The Customs men tried their best to mark them but failed miserably.

Midway through, ONGC was sitting pretty at 72-49. One expected Customs to go all out in the last quarter but that did not happen.

Indian Army (Delhi), thanks to Phool Singh (17) and Jinu Joseph (17), registered a 72-62 win over ICF (Chennai) in another match.

On the distaff side, favourite MTNL (Delhi) recorded a thumping 69-51 verdict over Rising Star (Chennai). Divya Singh (19) and Savitha (15) were the architects of the win.

Southern Railway (Chennai), helped by Renjini Peter (26), M. Meenalatha (17) and P. Anitha (12), defeated KSEB (Thiruvananthapuram) 73-54. The knock-out matches commence on Saturday.

The results: Men: ONGC bt Customs & Central Excise (Kochi) 85-68; Indian Army (Delhi) bt ICF 72-62; C & CE (Kochi) bt Indian Bank (Chennai) 68-61.

Women: MTNL bt Rising Star 69-51; Southern Railway bt KSEB 73-54; Rising Star bt SCR (Secunderabad) 62-57.

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