Sport - Basketball

Tamil Nadu's march continues
By Kamesh Srinivasan

Punjab's Kiranjit tries to score past Madhya Pradesh defenders in a women's quarterfinal match of the National basketball championship at Ludhiana on Sunday. - Photo: Sandeep Saxena

LUDHIANA, MARCH 10. Tamil Nadu continued its dominant run beating a fighting Jharkhand 109-83 to move into the semifinals of the Airtel 52nd National basketball championship at the Guru Nanak Sports Complex here on Sunday.

With M. S. Shabeer Ahmed and S. Robinson keeping themselves busy in blunting the Jharkhand attack with superb defence and giving themselves the luxury of the odd `dunk,' it was left to the rest of the team to get on with the scoring act. The side responded brilliantly, R. Sivasankar showing the way with 31 points.

With J. Desh Raj (34) at his best, Jharkhand could push the defending champion till 33-34, but a string of three- pointers took the match away, especially after half-time when Tamil Nadu enjoyed a 52-44 lead. In fact, the Tamil Nadu players had 14 three-pointers that left their opponents gasping for breath.

In the semifinals, Tamil Nadu will take on Services. The latter was stretched by Karnataka though not for long. After leading 47-40 at half-time, Services ran away with the match mainly duo to the brilliance of Peter John and Phool Singh who were fed a constant supply of passes, including some exquisite ones from the speedy Sambhaji Kadam, that drew considerale applause.

Railways was quite fluent in stopping Rajasthan in another match. Keeping the 7-feet tall but inactive Mohammed Islauddin on the sidelines clicked for Railways, as the team attacked as one unit. Rajasthan started well, but could not score for seven minutes in the second quarter. By then, Railways had taken a stranglehold over the proceedings to lead 42-25 at half- time, and eventually won 86-61.

In the women's section, Tamil Nadu was tested thoroughly by Andhra Pradesh before booking a semifinal berth with a 75-72 triumph. Tamil Nadu led 71-61, after being 45-38 at half-time, before Andhra's Sofi Sam made a final assault in a bid to wrest the honour, and almost succeeded. While Sofi scored 35 points, N. S. P. Kaushika excelled for Tamil Nadu with 26.

Madhya Pradesh tended to rely too much on Savita Deshwal, and once she was checked by the strong Punjab girls, it became difficult for the team to match the local side. Yet, Madhya Pradesh made a strong bid, especially through the three- pointers from Meenakshi Rao, that saw the team take a 59-57 lead.

However, Mandeep Brar (24) and Mandeep Khatra (5) collected three points each in the climax, including a three- pointer by the latter, that made Punjab breathe easy, much to the anguish of Madhya Pradesh.

Railways crushed Uttar Pradesh 63-37 after leading 26- 16 at the break, while Kerala had to fight a spirited Chattisgarh before ensuring a win, after enjoying a 35-30 lead at the breather. In the women's semifinals, Railways will be challenged by Tamil Nadu while Punjab will check out Kerala's ability.

The results:

Men (quarterfinals): Services 107 (Phool Singh 25, Peter John 23, G. R. L. Prasad 19, Dalip Kumar 11, Sweeto Francis 10) bt Karnataka 76 (J. Murali Mohan 26, Austin 20).

Railways 86 (Ranjeet Singh 20, Ram Kumar 16, Vishal Kumar 15, Surjeet Singh 13, Mahinder Singh 10) bt Rajasthan 61 (Man Singh 21, Mahipal Singh 12, Rajan 12, Moad Singh 11).

Tamil Nadu 109 (R. Sivasankar 31, S. Sridhar 16, M. S. Shabeer Ahmed 14, S. Roinson 14, J. Tony Leslie 11, Moses Jeevananth 10) bt Jharkhand 83 (J. Desh Raj 34, Riazuddin 17, Mohit Bhandari 14, N. S. Rawat 11).

Punjab 82 (Parminder Singh 24, Harminder Singh 11) bt Delhi 49 (Sandeep Singh 13).

Pre-quarterfinals: Delhi 94 (Sanjay Mohanti 42, Sandeep Singh 18, Yudhvir Singh 16) bt Kerala 75 (Santosh John 20, Sunny Thomas 18, Bobit Mathew 13, R. Muralikrishna 12).

Jharkhand 82 (N. S. Rawat 25, Mohit Bhandari 16, Desh Raj 15, Vinay Sheoran 14) bt Uttar Pradesh 41 (Pawan Kumar Singh 10).

Women (quarterfinals): Tamil Nadu 75 (N. S. P. Kaushika 26, Vidya Sridharan 15) bt Andhra Pradesh 72 (Sofi Sam 35, Jetty Jose 12).

Punjab 63 (Mandeep Brar 24, Kiranjit Kaur 16, Savitri 13) bt Madhya Pradesh 59 (Savita Deshwal 26, G. Meenakshi Rao 16, Nanda Jain 11).

Railways 63 (Ivy Cherian 19, Renjani Jose 10) bt Uttar Pradesh 37 (Divya Singh 13).

Kerala 65 (V. P. Sini 27, Ligi George 11, Rigi A. Sunny 10, P. Lajitha 10) bt Chattisgarh 56 (Seema Singh 20, Poonam Singh 18, Anju Lakra 10).

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