MP team beat Karnataka girls

74th Junior National Basketball Championship

Narendra Bhale

Indore: Host Madhya Pradesh girls team continued its explosive performance in the 74th Junior National Basketball Championship and achieved its second victory. MP team defeated the strong Karnataka team.

In the competition being played at the city’s Emerald Heights International School, host Madhya Pradesh boys team faced Karnataka team in Group-A . Both the teams are considered strong in the domestic circuit, so a tough match was expected. The match was also exciting, but the girls of MP performed well and won the match by 66-56 points. Sushpal Singh scored 31 points by performing very aggressively from Madhya Pradesh’s side. Gunvi Agarwal contributed 12 points. Aditi Subramaniam scored 19 points from Karnataka’s side, while Tarushi Tarun contributed 18 points to her team.

In women’s group-D, Chandigarh faced Bihar’s team, where Chandigarh girls proved to be better. Chandigarh won this match by 69-25. Tarannum scored 14 and Afreen Kaur scored 12 points from the winning team. Pihu Mangrulkar contributed 14 and Bhoomi Prakash contributed 9 points for Bihar.
MP Basketball Association President Kulwinder Singh Gill and General Secretary Avinash Anand told that in group-B, Kerala and Rajasthan teams were face to face. Both the teams played aggressively, due to which the match was high scoring and the audience also enjoyed. Rajasthan strengthened its position by defeating Kerala by 80-63 points. Priyanka scored the highest 29 points for the winning team. Bhumika contributed 20 and Priyanshi contributed 14 points.
Amanda scored 21 points for Kerala, but she did not get proper support from other players. Apart from her, Kalovia and Diya scored eight points each. In group-B, teams from Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh came on the court. Maharashtra won this match by a margin of 98-54 points. Ananya Bhavsar scored 37 points for the winning team. Rajvi Maladhari scored 17 and Gunjan scored 11 points. Palakshi Thakur scored 20 while Komaldeep Kaur scored 17 points for Chhattisgarh.

Maharashtra , Gujarat win :

In men’s category, in group-D, Maharashtra defeated Jammu and Kashmir team by a huge margin of 64-17 points. Captain Taufik Sheikh scored 13, Sachin Gurjar scored 10 and Shreyas Malvankar scored nine points for the winning team. Gujarat and Jharkhand clashed in men’s group-E. Gujarat won this match by 62-48 points. Jigrasingh Gohil scored 20 points for Gujarat while Kamil Sheikh contributed 16 and Harshraj contributed 15 points. Tej Pratap Singh scored 21 and Aryajeet Mishra scored 10 points for Jharkhand. Rajasthan defeated Andhra Pradesh by 64-24 points. Mohammad Ishan and Hitesh Kumar scored 15 points each for the winning team. In another match in Group-C, the strong Karnataka team defeated Himachal Pradesh by 87-55 points. In Group-C, Haryana defeated Bengal by 85-42 points. Ankush scored 21 points from Haryana’s team while Jayant and Aditya contributed nine points each. Shayan Desarkar scored 18 points for Bengal. In Group-A, the match between Kerala and Uttar Pradesh was a close one. Both the teams played aggressively. Kerala won the match by 92-88 points. Vinay Shankar scored 23 points from the winning team. Captain LR Niranjan contributed 15 points. Vedant and Kunal Kumar Singh scored 24 points each for Uttar Pradesh.