The Hindu : Bengal women send Andhra packing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003

Sport

Sport - Volleyball

Bengal women send Andhra packing

By M.C. Raman

Triprayar Feb. 10. Bengal's 25-13, 25-19, 25-23 victory over Andhra in women's Group A was an expected one as its spiking strength was much better than the latter's and with this win Bengal made sure of its qualification for the 25th Federation Cup volleyball tournament at the TSGA stadium here on Monday.

Andhra, which lost to the defending champion Railways on the opening day, bowed out of the tournament with two losses.

It is strange in just a month's time, teams like Andhra and Tamil Nadu put up such a pathetic performance. A month ago in the National Games at Hyderabad they looked strong with Railway players.

Only Kerala manages to maintain its team of same quality. Bengal too maintains some standard, but the team has brought four South Eastern Railways players, including junior international Thakurmoni Oran, who gave the side a clear edge in attack. But the other teams struggle without Railway stars.

Strictly speaking, Andhra had neither spiking power nor net defence to stop Bengal, for which Aparna Sur, Sudipta Biswas and Sujata Paul lent good support in attack. Vijayalakshmi and Radhika Reddy tried to block in the second and third sets and succeeded to some extent.

In fact, Andhra took a 20-19 lead in the third with some strong backcourt defence and block. But Oran spiked strongly to help Bengal wrap up the match quickly.

The organisers have suddenly shuffled the fixtures and have decided to conduct women's matches first.

Services posts win

Shijas Mohammed's superb back court attack and the Services' more organised game helped it to down Karnataka, which stunned the National champion Uttaranchal the other day, 25-15, 25-20, 25-22 and consolidate its position in men's Group A.

With this second win the Army side is almost certain of its place in the knock-out and the team now can pose a serious threat to any side in the tournament.

It is amazing that one player who could bring such transformation in the Services' game. Libero Arun Jakhmola's neat first passes are helping the Army squad launch its attack strongly. Setter Suju Joseph used arch passes and high ball for Shijas,who attacked strongly from the back court.

Aman and Sunil hit the short ball quickly to bring down Karnataka, which struggled to stem the flow of shots. On top of it the Services double block was superb in the first set.

It did not allow Prakash Rao, Pradeep, Damodar and Sankar spike freely. It was this strong net defence that demoralised Karnataka more and the team sank completely, despite running the rival close in the next two sets.

It's Kerala all the way

Kerala had it fairly easy against Tamil Nadu, which, without strong defence, caved in against the home team's relentless attack. Kerala won 25-6, 25-15, 25-17 in women's Group B on Sunday.

While Kerala is maintaining the same team, Tamil Nadu's game fluctuates according to the availability of the Railway players. There was neither strong attack nor tight defence.

Kerala, with its superior spiking power with the likes of Gisha Thomas, Salitha Prasad and Sheeba and strong jump serve of Preethy Kartha, made a comfortable start. It was only in the third set that the Tamil Nadu spikers, Rathi, Thenmozhi and Sawmini, spiked effectively to some extent. But Kerala was always ahead.

Late in the night, Karnataka combined smoothly and stunned the National champion, Uttaranchal, without its centre blocker Subba Rao, at 25-23, 25-21,20-25, 25-21 in men's Group A.

It was a tough going for the champion side from the beginning as Karnataka, with neat first pass, launched its attack through Prakash Rao, Damodar and Sankar.

Despite the absence of Lakshminarayana, who is injured and is not with the team, Karnataka played a more sensible game.

Setter Ravindra used more arc and short balls and the spikers responded. But more than that Karnataka's block clicked. Manjunath not only spiked short balls well, but also blocked effectively. Pradeep, Damodar and Prakash Rao combined quickly for double block and the Karnataka's attack was sharper and quicker.

Uttaranchal had tremendous height advantage because of Abhijit Bhattacharjee, Rahul, Rathish and Mithlesh Kumar, but they could not read the Karnataka attack well and found the going tough right through. It was only in the third set did Karnataka conceded a 1-8 lead because of confusion, but managed to bridge the gap 18-19. But Uttaranchal blocked with all its might at this stage to take the set.

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