Sport
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Basketball
Punjab Police bags men's crown
Punjab Police men Western Railway women teams which won the Federation Cup basketball titles, in Jamshedpur on Monday.
By Our Special Correspondent
JAMSHEDPUR, JAN. 15. Punjab Police remained the best men's team and Western Railway emerged on top in the women's section of the 18th Federation Cup basketball championship which concluded at the J.R.D. Tata Sports Complex here on Monday.
In winning its sixth consecutive crown, Punjab Police outplayed the host Tata Steel by 83 points to 50. Thus the policemen earned the right to represent India in the Asian Basketball Confederation Middle Asia zone qualifying tournament for the Champions' Cup beginning at Kolkata from Wednesday.
The Western Railway women, representing last year's champion Indian Railways, carried too much punch against Tamil Nadu to win in a canter at 88-59. Army recovered superbly from halftime deficit to win the third place in the men's section beating a listless Indian Overseas Bank, Chennai, 68 points to 64. Runner-up last year, Kerala, thrashed Andhra Pradesh 53-39 to take the corresponding position in the ladies' side.
Tata Steel made the cardinal mistake of playing an unfit Jaldeep Dhaliwal. Limping badly owing to the knee injury, the Tata Steel captain proved to be a liability. It was a mystery as to why young N. Puvaneshwaran was not fielded in the first place after his good showing against IOB in the semifinals.
Learning from its opening league encounter loss to Tata Steel, the policemen took an early grip on the game to lead the first quarter 21-10. After an even second quarter where both teams scored 16 points each, Punjab Police raised the tempo to turn the match around in the third quarter scoring 27 points to 10 of the host. As usual Parminder Singh Jr. (28 with three 3- pointer) and Gagnesh Kumar (18 with two 3-pointer) were outstanding and Parminder Singh Sr. made the most of the opportunity to gather 22 points.
Tata Steel's speedy Mohit Bhandari and Riyazuddin were not given much liberty to operate effectively and thus the attack suffered badly leaving the host always under pressure.
N.S. Rawat, on duty under his own board by the presence of Parminder Sr., could not join the attack as much as he would have wished. Like earlier matches, Punjab Police played Parminder Sr, Parminder Jr, Gagnesh, Pritpal and Gursharanjit in the final.
When Gursharanjit earned three fouls by the end of the second quarter, Harminder replaced him. In all Punjab Police played a free flowing yet calculated game to avenge its league defeat.
Speed and stamina were the forte of the Western Railway players against Tamil Nadu. After an even first quarter (26-24), the next three quarters proved to be disastrous for Tamil Nadu. International Ranjani Jose was too slow and failed to combine with the rest of the team and another international M. Meenalatha could not play her best. Naturally too much load was on play-maker and captain B.S. Shyla and Sharmili P. Mathew. Though N. Shyamalajothi strove hard with her limitations, she looked out of sorts in this company.
Western's three internationals, skipper Shiba Maggon, Arnika Gujar and Ivy Cherian, played with great understanding. With quick promptings from Shanti Saldhana and Lincy Joseph, Western attack flowed throughout the game.
After leading 40-32 at halfway mark and ensuring things would not go out of hands, the champion team pulled its captain Shiba out of the attack to introduce Meena Singh for the first change and brought in Sheeja Mathew in the fourth quarter to give Arnika a well earned rest. By then the game was out of TN. N.P. Sinha, consultant, Tata Steel and B.K. Saha, president, the Basketball Federation of India gave away the medals and trophies.
The results: (Finals): Men: Punjab Police 83 (37) (Parminder Singh Jr. 28 (3), Parminder Singh Sr. 22, Ganesh Kumar 18 (2) bt Tata Steel 50 (26) (Mohit Bhandari 13 (3), Riyazuddin 10 (2). For third place: Army 68 (25) (Gagandeep Singh 17, Phool Singh 15) bt IOB 64 (42) (Robinson 17, Hariharasudan 14).
Women: Western Railway 88 (40) (Arnika Gujar 27 (4), Shiba Maggon 23) bt Tamil Nadu 59 (32) (B.S. Shyla 16 (4), Ranjani Jose 13). Kerala 53 (38) (Ligi George 14, Rigi A. Sunny 12) bt AP 39 (23) (Jetty Jose 26).
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