The Hindu : Sport / Volleyball : Indians made to sweat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 16, 2004

Sport

Sport - Volleyball

Indians made to sweat

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 15. The Indian Youth team had it in it to put it across the Uzbekistan National team to win a tight contest at 3-2 in the third of the five scheduled volleyball `Test' matches. The SAI Indoor facility at Kengeri saw the Russia bound India Youth team win 24-26, 25-23, 25-16, 21-25, 15-7 in just about 101 minutes. The Indians — juniors and seniors — had in the previous two outings proved far too superior to the visiting side.

This Indian youth team will participate in the Children of Asia championship being held at Yakutsk (Russia) from July 23 to 30, and today's match as well as the one scheduled for tomorrow should provide an ideal practice fixture, against the Uzbeks.

There were far too many chinks in the India defence to begin with and it persisted throughout the five set encounter. "We will iron out the flaws. The boys were playing an International team and wearing the India colours for the first time and the nerves did play up. Tomorrow we will win easily," said Chief coach Made Gowda. But then to justify his words the boys, all in the under-17 bracket, need to pull up their socks a great deal.

The first pass was miserable and the backline showed poor recovery and it was only the sustained power-hitting by captain Sube Singh, who thrived on the short-lifts, and Ashok Kumar that saw Indian team keep its score ticking.

Baby-faced Balvinder Singh, the lad from Chandigarh, who was adjudged the best player at the junior nationals, impressed in his role as a setter. But then the youngster had to work hard to reach the first pass which was consistently inconsistent and so were the serves too.

Uzbeks did seem to have worked on their failings but once again the most experienced player in its side - Sererrenikov Alexander - failed to lift his team up. And if the Uzbeks prospered it was in the exploitation of the yawning gap behind the two-men block that India adopted, with repeated `drops'.

Winning the first set 26-24 the Uzbeks' sensed a chance to reverse the trend of the previous two outings and matched the youthful Indian side point for point in the second. However vital mistakes by the gangling Shendrikov Stanislav helped the home side win the second at 25-23 and the third rather easily at 25-16.

With Karthikeyan unable to justify the coaches' confidence in him, Saravanan was brought in and the TN lad played a crucial role along with his state-mate Shelton Moses in diffusing the fire-power of the Uzbeks. But silly errors continued to torment the Indian side which went on to lose the fourth at 21-25.

But in the decider there was nothing wrong that the Indians did as they raced to a 7-0 lead and won the set and match handily at 15-7.

On Friday the two teams will lock horns yet again. The Uzbeks and the Indian Senior then play in Chennai on Sunday.

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