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Tamil Nadu men extend lease on title

By M.C. Raman

Hyderabad Feb. 1 Tamil Nadu brought things under control quickly in the later part of the game to extend its lease on the Todd Trophy for the fourth year in a row with a flattering 86-57 win over Punjab, but the Railways could not do so and crashed to a 61-75 defeat against Delhi in the exciting women's final. Thus Delhi women lifted the Prince Basalat Jha Trophy in the 53rd National senior basketball championship at the Swarnandhra indoor complex here on Saturday.

Tamil Nadu blunted Punjab's early challenge effectively, but the Railways allowed things to drift even in the final stages and crashing to defeat .

Tamil Nadu's victory was an expected one in the sense that its winning record is quite impressive in the last three National championships, but the Railways, which has an array of shooters and pivots, lost the grip owing to poor mobilisation of resources and overconfidence. For six years, Sheeba Maggon, a brilliant player from Haryana who learnt her basketball in Chandigarh, was with the Railways and now he is in the team of the newly assembled MPNL at Delhi.

It is strange that such a player was almost single-handedly bring down the Railways by scoring 36 points. She was moving into the Railway defence like a knife in the butter. Why the Railway players, who knew her game, allowed her to cut in so easily ? Why Renjini Jose was not used early in the match along with Ivy Cherian to control the rebounds ? There were no answers to many of these questions. And the Railway was going dangerously down the slope.

Still there was no urge in the Railway game to make a match of it. Only Seema Singh converted free throws and fought till the end. But the Railways' performance was as a whole was pretty bad. The Delhi girls, Rajalakshmi, Rollin Sara, Rameshwari, Sheeba Maggon and Divya Singh boxed out Ivy Chriran superbly. In fact, it was Delhi's strong one-on-one defence that broke the Railway rhythm. The Railway could have switched to zome defence. But it did not do that too. Delhi set the pace in the first quarter itself with strong drive and steady shooting. Having taken a 25-19 lead in the first quarter, it stretched it further to 39-28 at half time.

But Sheeba went on full steam in the second half and she was really unstoppable. Divya basketed steadily in the beginning and Sheeba took over later and together they played havoc with the Railway defence, which failed to control the rebounds right through.

Tamil Nadu and Punjab were on a collision course in the first five minutes and there were only four points in that period, scored by Tamil Nadu. Punjab's tough defence during that period held back the Tamil Nadu shooters. However, it did not last long Robinson broke free first, but it was Shabeer who brought more pressure on the Punjab defence by not only guarding Parminder Singh (sr) well, but also uleashing jump shots from the top of the circle. In fact, it was Shabeer's steady left handed shots that enabled Tamil Nadu finish at 25-8 in the first quarter. Ball handler Shivakumar was finding the going tough and Sridhar ran up three fouls quickly. Still the defending champion managed to take a 40-26 lead half time.

However, after the break ball handler Gopinath came in for Shivakumar and changed the complexion of the game. His drive, passing and basketing prompted Tamil Nadu further to launch its full attack. For a brief period the towering Parminder barged in for baskets and he also attacked the defensive rebounds. That helped the team to reduce the lead to just eight point at one stage. Tamil Nadu lost a 20 point lead under pressure.

Still the southern side kept itself ahead because it completely bottled up sharp shooter Gagnesh Kumar, who took more that 15 minutes to score one basket. After the break he did not enter. Even Harminder Singh was bottled up because of strong man-to-man defence, which never broke.

In fact, its defence became stronger. Sukhavaneshwar played brilliantly by cutting in quickly despite Parminder's presence. In the third quater, Tamil Nadu stretched the lead to 60-45 and in the last quarter, it virtually outplayed Punjab, which fell apart unable to stop the rival surge.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of AP, gave away the trophies.

The results:

Men: Final: Tamil Nadu 86 (Sridhar 19, Shabeer Ahmed 13, Robinson 18, Sukhavaneshwar 14) bt Punjab 57 (Parminder Singh (sr) 28, Harminder Singh 11)

Third place: Services 92 (Harendar Singh 32, Phool Singh 28) bt Jharkhand 59 (Des Raj 18, Mohit Bhandari 18)

Women: Final: Delhi 75 (Sheeba Maggon 36, Divya Singh 16) bt Railways 61 (Seema Singh 22, Anju Lakra 11, Philomina 14)

Third place: Kerala 80 (Ambili thomas 23, Deepa Geroge 13, Geetha Anna 13) bt MP 71 (Savita Deshwal 21, Meenakshmi Rao 16, Nanda 14)

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