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Tennis
Punjab Police, Tata Steel in men's final
By S. Sabanayakan
JAMSHEDPUR, JAN. 13. The defending men's champion Punjab Police took its appointed place in the final of the 18th Federation Cup basketball championship at the J.R.D. Tata Sports Complex here on Sunday. Challenging its might on the morrow would be Tata Steel, a deserving victor over fancied Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai.
Western Railway, representing the holder Indian Railways, would clash with Tamil Nadu in the women's final. Western outplayed Andhra Pradesh, while TN had the measure of last year's finalist Kerala in the semifinals.
If it was a tactical victory for the Punjab policemen over Army, Tata Steel's resilience paid rich dividends against IOB. The bankmen from Chennai should blame themselves for their poor showing. Having allowed Tata Steel to take an early lead (18-6), thanks to some superb outside shots, IOB players failed to raise their game a few notches higher.
Despite playing three internationals, Robinson, Shabeer Ahmad and Sridhar, IOB's game turned out to be very predictable. Added to this was its failure in getting rebounds under both boards. Under pressure throughout till it pulled even at 66-66 with about 3.30 seconds to go, IOB lost the services of Sridhar, Hariharasudan and Robinson for committing five fouls in quick succession in the final minutes.
With 15 seconds to go for the game, Shabeer and Tata Steel's Riyazuddin were involved in a brawl and were disqualified. By then it was all over for IOB. The bankmen, much more experienced, thought the officiating favoured the host team. But then such happenings were nothing new in this country and it should have foreseen a situation of this nature to alter its strategy.
IOB failed to utilise the two pivots, Shabeer and Robinson, under the offensive board. Its attacking moves lacked speed and IOB hardly tried to pressurise the rival side with fast breakaways. The utter failure of Shabeer did break the rhythm of IOB and its outside shooting was pathetic. The bankmen hardly managed to break through the Tata Steel defence and its inside shooting was practically nil.
Credit should go to the Steelmen for using their limited resources to great advantage. Nippy Riyazuddin and Mohit Bhandari played havoc with the IOB defence and till the last seconds they managed to come up with drive-ins. All these without the services of its captain Jaldeep Dhaliwal, missing the game owing to a knee injury.
After being ahead by three points at the end of the second quarter, Tata Steel scored 15 as against IOB's 10 in the third and 20 for 17 in the final quarter.
Punjab Police was in a similar situation against Army which bottled up Parminder Singh Senior and Gursharanjit from causing much damage. Then the two shortest players of the side, Gagnesh Kumar and Parminder Junior, took charge with their speedy breakaways and accurate shooting from outside.
When pressure mounted, Army's shooting went haywire. Punjab Police controlled the pace of the game at will. The armymen too failed to win most of the rebounds and this told on their scoring. After 13-11 in favour of Punjab Police in the first quarter, the lead increased to 38-27. The Army team's best quarter was the third where it outscored Punjab Police by 22 points to 16. In the final quarter, it was Punjab Police all the way getting 28 points to Army's 22. Gagnesh and Parminder Junior played outstanding game and were instrumental in their team's well deserved victory.
TN, Western Railway make final
Tamil Nadu women managed to concede just three points in the second quarter and the 17 points lead told in the final result against Kerala. Western Railway, the favourite to win the crown, just toyed with AP after leading 38-11 at the half-way of the match. AP was allowed to score in the last two quarters though Western Railway too kept increasing the lead to end the game at 82-42.
Both the third and fourth place matches and the two finals would be played on Monday.
The results (semifinals):
Men: Punjab Police 82 (Gagnesh Kumar 24, Parminder Singh Jr. 21, Parminder Singh Sr. 16) bt Army 72 (Satish Kumar 14, Gagandeep 11); Tata Steel 80 (Mohit Bhandari 26, Desraj 21, Riyazuddin 14) bt IOB 69 (Robinson 23, Sivasankar 14, Sridhar 11.
Women: Western Railway 82 (Arnika Gujar 18, Shiba Maggon 13) bt AP 42 (Laiji V.P. 11); Tamil Nadu 63 (Rajini Jose 23, M. Meenalatha 12) bt Kerala 48 (Rigi A. Sunny 14, Ambily Thomas 12).
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