India takes on Bangladesh in final

By Amitabha Das Sharma

GUWAHATI, MARCH 5. India is going from strength to strength. Corresponding to the giant status it is enjoying in the inaugural OIL SAARC Mens Basketball Championship, the host trounced Nepal 156-33 in the first semifinal at the NF Railway complex, Maligaon here on Monday. India will meet Bangladesh, which scrapped past a determined Maldives team 69-61 in the other semifinal, in the title clash on Tuesday. The losing semifinalists will meet each other in a match for the bronze at the same venue prior to the final tomorrow.

The Indian showing on Monday came up as the best in the tournament, as the opposition from the Himalayan Kingdom proved much below expectations. With Nepal never putting up any resistance, the host players seemed to be fighting a battle with the self.

As has been outlined from the outset, this tournament was just a dress rehearsal for the forthcoming Asian Basketball Championship. And of the progress made so far, the Indian coach Keshav Kumar Chansoria said that, ``it is unfortunate that we do not have better teams like the Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the fray but this gives our boys ample opportunity for self-assessment.

All the 12 players in the team were used in turns in the match and everyone played his role well in the different formations that were tried in the match. Though there were occasional slips as the players tried to speed up their thrusts on the opposition area, the performance in general remained quite high as the goals came regularly. All the quarters, except the third, recorded almost equal points in the host's favour. ``Consistency was one big area we are trying to work on, said the coach ``and so far there has been not much disappointment.''

It was captain and Punjab player Parminder Singh, who stole the march over his juniors yet again, scoring the maximum points - 21. But J. Muralimohan, who played the lead against Maldives in the league match at Bongaigaon on Sunday, and Asian All-Star player S. Robinson shared 40 points to remain close behind. Muralimohan, however, beat everyone in finishing long attempts and recorded four three-pointers, that contributed most to his scoring. ``This has been one of the better teams in a long time. We have lot of tall players (Mohammad Islahuddin of Railways at 215 cms is the tallest) and combined with a determination to excel, the present side gives us the hope that we can achieve higher standards in the coming days, opined Chansoria.

As has been the highlight of the teams showing so far, the Indians fought a fine combination of passing-game. The incursions into the enemy territory was quick and the Nepalese defence was in tatters against a quick-passing opposition. The first quarter saw the Indians leading 41-14. The goals were almost evenly shared with all the players in the starting line-up getting the basket. S. Sridhar, who took the third place in the scoring-sheet with 17 points, showed his best in the first quarter netting seven points.

The second quarter had the likes of Muralimohan, Robinson and Parminder coming up as India led the first session 80-22. The second session saw the host falling short of six points, that could have doubled the first-half score. With the above three players maintaining their strong show, and aided in spells by Islahuddin and Sridhar, there was hardly any reason why the Indians should not have got such a big victory. For Nepal, which has taken to this sport hardly a year ago, the only thing the team achieved was reproducing its score of the league phase. India beat Nepal 125-33 in the league.

As for Maldives, which had lost 71-94 against Bangladesh in the league stage, the showing in the other semifinal against the same opposition underlined a great improvement in performance. The Indian Ocean Island team, under its Sri Lankan coach Supun Vimal, has proved to be a fast learner. But, one thing the team has missed is the total absence of the tall players.

However, the Maldives players tried to over come the deficit with their pace which at times looked to trouble the generally tall Bangladesh defenders. Bangladesh led from the very beginning with its tall pivot, Mohammad Rasheduzzaman, shooting them in regularly. Rasheduzzaman top scored with 30 points but the problem that seemed to plague the Bangladesh team was the lack of good forwards and this could be gauged by the difference of 12 points between the top two scorers in the team. Mohammad Delawar Hussain scored 18 points to be the second best scorer while the rest were below 10.

Bangladesh led 35-27 in the first-half and that was gained primarily because of the seven-point lead the team took in the first quarter when Maldives committed plenty of errors. In the rest of the session, Maldives trailed 19-20 (II), 13-18 (III) and led the fourth scoring 21 against Bangladesh's 18. The Maldives coach rued the players' inability to finish from a distance, ``we had 15 three-pointers against the same team in the last match but there were only five today, he said. On the whole, for a team like Maldives making its first International appearance in 21 years, the showing against a regular side like Bangladesh deserved acclaim.

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