The Hindu : Western Railway women bag title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 27, 2003

Sport

Sport - Basketball

Western Railway women bag title

By M.C. Raman

Photo: Vino John

Western Railway women's team which won the 20th Federation Cup basketball championship at Vashi in Navi Mumbai on Saturday. Standing (from left): Arnika Gujjar, Ivy Cherian, Mr. Riaz Kadri (coach), Ms. Deepali Shah (manager), Menaka Antony and Sheeja Mathew. Sitting: Lincy Joseph, Shanti Saldanha, Lovita Figueiredo and Nimmy Menon.

Vashi (Navi Mumbai) April 26 It had all the intensity of a final. Western Railway, Mumbai, the Inter-Railway champion, did face a tough fight, but its better defence and Nimmy Menon, who was

sitting on the bench all along and played as a main player today, steered the team to a 74-58 victory against Andhra in the women's final of the 20th Federation Cup basketball tournament at the Fr. Agnel Technical Education complex here on Saturday.

Railways is sustaining women's basketball in the country and Kerala is the main feeding State. Both the finalists belong to the Railways and they know each other's game. They used to come as Indian Railways and win the trophy. Now the winners of Inter-Railway is playing as a club. Last year, Southern Railway, Chennai, was the Inter-Railway champion and the Cup winner.

As there is no fresh recruitment Southern has lost its importance and Westeran has moved to the

Centre stage now.

Western is also an equally strong outfit. In 2001 at Jamshedpur it won the Cup title and this time it

won the Ramammal memorial Trophy. Andhra is virtually the South Central Railway squad.

So it was the inter-Railway rivalry that spilled into the court here and they fought hard to prove who is the best once again.

In the last two encounters, Arnika Gujjar's shooting was not so good. Yesterday, it was Ivy Cherian who came to Western's rescue. Today it was Nimmi, a short and quick-footed girl, who propped up the Western game. Lincy Joseph's hand injury forced her to sit on the bench and Nimmi, normally a substitute, took her place in the team. She was so quick and slippery, moving in through flanks

for baskets, the Andhra girls were not able to stop her. Nimmi also unleashed three pointers. Even the point guards Ivy Cherian and Sheeja Mathew moved in for shots in the second half in which Andhra tried to rally through Sofi Sam. But the problem with Andhra was that it did not have dependable outside shooters like Jetty Jose.

As the Western rebounding was pretty strong, Andhra did not want to take chance . Still Jetty Jose, Binu and Binu Francis basketed, but Western was maintaining 10-point lead in the second half, though it made a shaky start, leading just by one point at half time (34-33).

Western's pivot game gave it a 20-13 lead in the first quarter. Ball handler Shanti Saldanha fed Ivy and Sheeja and they did the rest. But in the second quarter, Andhra tightened up its zone defence and challenged Ivy and Sheeja under the basket.

Under pressure Western stumbled and scored only 14 points against Andhra's 20. At half time Western's lead was reduced to just one point. However, it was a different game in the third quarter.

Arnika Gujjar picked up her shooting and that gave 10 point lead to the Mumbai team. Andhra fought and reduced the lead to just two baskets on two occasions.

But Western outpaced and outbasketed in the later part of the third quarter and fourth too. It was a series of baskets by Arnika, Nimmi, Ivy and Sheeja that put Western on the victory path and the local crowd, beating drums and cheering Western's baskets all the time, acknowledged its victory.

Delhi finishes third

Earlier, Delhi women finished third, beating Chhatisgarh 68-61. Delhi trailed 26-27 at half time.

Chhattisgarh took the fourth spot. Tata Steel (TISCO), Jamshedpur, came third in the men's section, beating Indian Army 58-51. Tata Steel led 27-21 at half time. Indian Army finished fourth.

Parminders' day

Earlier on Friday night,Punjab Police is gradually discarding its old guards and getting rejuvenated. But two players remain indispensable — the Parminders, junior and senior. On Friday, they propped up the Police team as it beat Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, 78-56 to set up a title clash with IOB.

The towering Parminder (sr) is not the same old Goliath; he has slowed down. However, he is still a threat and the Police coach used him to get a psychological advantage. The Tata players did not bother about his presence, worked up a good pace and matched their rival's shooting till the first half. Wasim Khan, Prakash Rao — a good outside shooter — and Amrish Kumar rattled the rival with steady scoring.

The Jamshedpur lacked in rebound collection where it missed Bhuvaneshwaran. The 57-year-old Panda was just a spectator and could do nothing to stop the rivals who kept outpacing him. Barring a shot or two, Panda was ineffective.

While Punjab Police played the pivot game more using Parminder (sr), the Tata players took shots from outside. The Punjab side had only a one-point lead at halftime (32-31) after being 13-all in the first quarter and 19-18 ahead in the second.

In the third quarter, Manpreet Singh and Parminder (jr) reeled off set shots in superb fashion to help their team stretch the lead to over 20 points. The Policemen went on a scoring spree to notch up 37 points against Tata's 15. Though Punjab Police was rather casual in the last quarter, it did not allow the Tata players to shoot freely. In the end, it was a comfortable win.

The results:

Women: Final: Western Railway 74 (Arnika Gujjar 15, Sheeja Mathew 10, Nimmy Menon 20, Ivy Cherian 19) bt Andhra 58 (Sofi Sam 25, Jetty Jose 10).

Third place: Delhi 68 (Sheeba Maggon 28, Divya Singh 16, Rollin Sara 10, Rajalakshmi 10) bt

Chhatisgarh 61 (Seema Singh 18, Anju Lakra 15, J. Venu 14, Poonam Singh 10)

Men: Third place: Tata Steel 58 (Binod Choudhry 18, Wasim Khan 17, Man Singh 13) bt Indian Army 51 (Vijay Kumar 19, Jaswinder Singh 11).

Friday's result: Men: Punjab Police 78 (Parminder (Sr) 28, Parminder (Jr) 21) beat Tata Steel 56 (Wasim Khan 15, Prakash Rao 14, Amrish Kumar 10).

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