MP girls’ victorious start

Junior National Basketball Championship begins at Emerald Heights School

Narendra Bhale

Indore: Host Madhya Pradesh’s daughters performed strongly and started the campaign with a big win in the 74th Junior National Basketball Championship. A total of 52 teams from across the country are participating in the competition in the men’s and women’s category.

The competition was inaugurated under the chief hospitality of Indian senior men’s team captain Amritpal Singh, BSF Commandant Lalit Hurmade, Indian Basketball Association President Adhav Arjuna. Special guests were Emerald Heights School President Muktesh Singh, MP Basketball Association President Kulwinder Singh Gill and General Secretary Avinash Anand. In the first league match of the competition organized at the local Emerald Heights International School, the women’s team of MP made a successful start by defeating its neighboring state Rajasthan by a margin of 86-61 points. From the beginning of the match, the players of MP kept the opposing team under pressure with their fast and aggressive play. Rajasthan team’s game remained scattered in front of the well planned attack of MP girls and they kept making mistakes. Khushipal Singh performed well by scoring 22 points from MP’s side. Gunvi Agarwal scored 15 points and Mansi Vishwakarma scored 11 points. Rajasthan’s Bhumika Verma and Priyanshi Joshi scored 12-12 points while Twinkle scored 11 points.

In other matches played on the first day of the championship being played on league cum knockout system, Tamil Nadu defeated Odisha in a one-sided fashion by 106-48 in the men’s category. Chandigarh’s team defeated Kerala by 82-66 points. Himachal Pradesh could not stand in front of Haryana’s team and Haryana won the match by 86-44 points. Manipur’s team defeated Meghalaya by 62-48. Telangana strengthened its position by defeating Jammu Kashmir’s team by 48-27 in a one-sided fashion.
In the women’s league matches, the strong team of former champion Tamil Nadu defeated Karnataka by 92-58 points. Whereas, the team of Maharashtra defeated Gujarat by 84-71 in a close contest. Haryana defeated Himachal Pradesh by 59-28, Bihar defeated Jammu and Kashmir by 49-38, Telangana defeated Andaman Nicobar by 37-29, Delhi defeated Puducherry by 66-34 and Andhra Pradesh defeated Meghalaya by 73-53 points.

It is worth mentioning that the Indian team will be selected on the basis of this competition. National selectors have also reached the city to keep an eye on the performance of the players. The boys’ team selected in Indore will participate in the South Asian Championship to be held in Sri Lanka in June. The winning team of this tournament will participate in the Asian Championship in Jordan. The girls’ team will participate in the 3 on 3 World Championship to be held in Hungary.