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Basketball
Tata Steel men enter knockout stage
By S. Sabanayakan
JAMSHEDPUR, JAN. 11. The host Tata Steel men and Western Railway women were the first to enter the knockout stage of the 18th Federation Cup basketball championship at the J.R.D. Tata Sports Complex here on Friday.
Despite losing to Vijaya Bank, Bangalore, in its concluding group `A' league match, the host made it to the semifinals on better points difference. Vijaya Bank, which won its second league game defeating Tata Steel 82-68, would take on Punjab Police in the last league game on Saturday.
Western Railway women had no such problem in making the next grade comfortably beating Delhi 52-28. The second place from this group would be decided between Tamil Nadu and Delhi tomorrow.
In the men's group `B' league, Central Excise, Cochin, surprised Army 81-70 points. Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai, which lost to Army yesterday in the opening game, humbled Western Railway 104-83, thus it became the first team in this meet to go past the 100-point barrier. All four teams in this group had one win each and the last set of matches on Saturday would decide the semifinals qualifier.
In group B for women, Kerala won its second consecutive game beating Punjab 53-34 and was all set to make it to the knockout stage. Andhra Pradesh downed Karnataka for its first victory and would play Punjab for a place in the semifinals.
Last year's runner-up Army looked rather overconfident in taking on Central Excise, which had lost to Western Railway yesterday. That proved the armymen's undoing as the Cochin team played an inspiring game.
With pivot Subhas Shenoy playing his role to near perfection under the boards, the Army players had little chance to cause much damage. The Kerala side also put up a dogged defence giving little away under its own board forcing the armymen to take hasty shots. The excisemen for the major part of the game enjoyed supremacy.
IOB's tactic of using the two tall men - internationals Robinson and Shabeer Ahmed, to rebound collection paid off. The two along with Sivasankar, an outside shooter with tremendous accuracy, kept the bankmen always ahead though the railwaymen kept fighting till the end.
Vijaya Bank's speed and accurate shooting in the first ten minutes gave the team the psychological advantage as international Muralimohan got his act together along with Basavaraj. With Austin and Stalin lending a helping hand in shooting from both inside and outside, A. Rajkumar distributed brilliantly that made all the difference.
Lack of a game clock and 24-second timer left a lot of teams disappointed and dissatisfied. Many wonder how such an important tournament could be played without the basic needs of the game?
The results:
Men, group A: Punjab Police 84 (Parminder Sr 24, Swaraj Singh 16) bt Jaipur District 41 (Tilak Bahadur 13 (3); Vijaya Bank 82 (Muralimohan 29, Basavaraj M. 19) bt Tata Steel 68 (Mohit Bhandari 23, N.S. Rawat 10). Group B: Central Excise 81 (Subhas Shenoy 21, Joseph John 13) bt Army 70 (Phool Singh 28, S. Francis 14); IOB 104 (Sivasankar 39 (6), Robinson 34) bt Western Railway 83 (Mahinder Singh 25, Ranjit Singh 20).
Women, group A: Western Railway 52 (Deepali 10) bt Delhi 28 (Rameshwari 11). Group B: Kerala 53 (Ambili P.K. 12) bt Punjab 34; Andhra Pradesh 51 (Jetty Jose 20) bt Karnataka 41 (M.R. Savitha 14, L.S. Savitha 15).
Central Excise's Joe Antony is aiming for the basket as S. Francis of Indian Army tries to intervene in their Federation Cup basketball encounter at Jamshedpur on Friday. - Photo: Sushanta Patronobish.
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