Basketball – The Hindu

Great going: The Tamil Nadu’s women players celebrate their triumph.
| Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

All smiles: The Tamil Nadu women’s basketballers with their gold medals.
| Photo Credit:
RITU RAJ KONWAR

Victorious: The victorious Punjab men’s basketball team.
| Photo Credit:
RITU RAJ KONWAR

Looking stronger with many new coming in, Punjab shocked National champion Tamil Nadu 80-64 and retained the men’s basketball title in the National Games at the Maharaja Pratap sports complex here on Sunday. Earlier, Tamil Nadu won the women’s title, brushing aside defending champion Kerala 79-46.

Tamil Nadu had defeated Punjab comfortably in the recent National final at Bhavnagar, but Sunday was a very different day. The match was close till the first half but Punjab grabbed a 10-point lead in the third quarter and built on it to emerge an easy winner.

“ A lot of people were doubting us after the National, no one can doubt us now. At the National, we were not the full team,” Punjab captain Amjyot Gill, also the champion’s top-scorer, told The Hindu. “Six or seven of our players are coming from the Railways. In Punjab, we don’t have that much departments like Tamil Nadu has, two of our team members are still not playing, if they were also here we would have conquered the whole of India.”

Tamil Nadu women had also strengthened the side with Railway players for the National Games.

“We have four Railway players in the team,” said Dharshini Thirunavukkarasu, the Tamil Nadu captain who was part of the Railway team which won the recent National where she walked away with the Most Valuable Player Award.

Kerala had played a close semifinal against Karnataka on Saturday and appeared a weary lot in the third quarter on the day when it could manage only five points compared to Tamil Nadu’s 21.

“After playing a tight semifinal last evening, it was like playing two matches in a day since the final was in the morning,” said Kerala coach Jijo Paul. “We did not have proper rest.”

The results: Men’s final: Punjab 80 (Amjyot Gill 18, Nawaz Singh Panaich 15, Gurbaz Singh 14, Gurwinder Singh 13, Palpreet Singh 10) bt Tamil Nadu 64 (P. Baladhaneshwar 16, Muin Bek 15, Pranav Prince 14, Arvind Kumar 10). Third place: Delhi bt Services 63-57.

Women’s final: Tamil Nadu 79 (K. Sathya 17, Sathiya Senthilkumar 13, M. Nishanthi 13, Dharshini Thirunavaukkarasu 12) bt Kerala 46 (R. Sreekala 19). Third place: Karnataka bt Punjab 77-76.