The Hindu : Sport : Southern Railway jolts HSIDC

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 09, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Southern Railway jolts HSIDC

Principal Correspondent

ACTION PACKED: Sunil Kumar of Southern Railways smashes one across to the HSIIDC side. — Photo: Vipin Chandran

KOCHI: With tall and well-built young men, it had the power. And with names like Sanjay Kumar and Amir Singh, it had the stars too. But on Thursday, things went horribly wrong for Haryana's HSIDC in the 11th National Volleyball League's final phase here.

The NVL champion just two years ago and one of the favourites for the title here, HSIDC suffered a shocking straight-set collapse against Chennai's Southern Railway at the BPCL Kochi Refinery Stadium, Ambalamugal. The Chennai side has now won both its opening matches in the six-team league event.

Southern Railway has never come anywhere close to the National League title and this evening, with just nine players, the odds were heavily stacked against the Chennai side. But the team raised its game admirably. It did not have a libero but it played better defence than its opponent.

Bottling up the Haryana attackers Amir Singh, Jitender and Surjit was the key to the match and P.V. Sunil Kumar and James John performed the job nicely, with setter Kapil Dev lending a useful hand.

Kapil, the Indian and Railway captain, rotated the attack admirably and played a big role in the victory. The team came up with some smart combination play with Sunil Kumar often selling the dummy while Sivarajan and James John came up with some shrewd crosscourt smashes. Sivarajan and James won a series of points with their jump serves too.

Later, Southern Railway women opened their campaign with an exciting five-set victory over Western Railway. There was an interesting duel between the Western captain K.J. Shibi and Southern blocker K.T. Betsy, who was adjudged as one of the best blockers at the Youth Asian Meet a few years ago. Shibi was in fine form early but as the match wore on, Betsy thwarted her with a strong wall.

For Southern, captain Geetha Raju impressed early but with Western sorting her out with an attacking block, Preethi U. Kartha guided the Chennai side to victory with her jump serves and powerful crosscourt smashes.

The results: Men: Southern Railway bt HSIDC 25-14, 25-21, 25-20. HSIDC bt Indian Navy 25-20, 18-25, 25-23, 25-20; S.Railway bt Cochin Port Trust 25-18, 26-28, 15-25, 25-21, 15-13.

Women: Southern Railway bt Western Railway 25-22, 25-17, 18-25, 29-31, 15-13.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport