Thumping wins forMadhya Pradesh boys, girls

74th Junior National Basketball Championship

Narendra Bhale

Indore: Host Madhya Pradesh’s daughters continued their winning streak and completed a hat-trick of victory in the 74th Junior National Basketball Championship, while the boys’ team also achieved a strong victory. The women’s team defeated Kerala while the men’s team defeated Andhra Pradesh.
In the competition organized at the local Emerald Heights International School, the series of explosive performances of Madhya Pradesh’s daughters continued on the third day. In the competition on Friday, Indore was up against Kerala’s team. Kerala is considered a strong team in domestic matches, but the daughters of Madhya Pradesh defeated Kerala like a novice team by 77-55 points. From the beginning of the match, the daughters of Madhya Pradesh adopted an aggressive approach and strengthened their lead in every quarter. Khushipal Singh scored the highest 21 points for Madhya Pradesh. Ananya Maheshwari contributed 15 points while Samya Wadhwani contributed 11 points. Rocha Amanda scored 18 and A. Lakshmi scored 15 points for Kerala.

Madhya Pradesh Basketball Association President Kulwinder Singh Gill and General Secretary Avinash Anand said that in Group B of men’s category, Madhya Pradesh boys team defeated Andhra Pradesh by a big margin. Madhya Pradesh scored 88 points while Andhra Pradesh team scored 56 points. Kirtiraj Singh scored the highest 24 points for Madhya Pradesh while Gautam Pal contributed 17 points to the team’s victory. Captain Dwarkanath Reddy scored 16 points for Andhra Pradesh while Akhil Kumar contributed 15 points. In another match in the men’s category, host Madhya Pradesh team defeated Rajasthan by 98-88 points. Mohit Jogchand of the host team scored 24, Gautam Pal 21, Rohan Shejwal 18 and Kirtiraj Singh scored 16 points. Ajay Kumar of Rajasthan scored 19 and Nitesh Kumar scored 17 points.
In the women’s category, Bengal and Haryana clashed in Group-C. Haryana won this match by 51-37 points. For the winning team, Kaifi scored 12 points while Khushboo scored 11 points. Gujarat girls defeated Chhattisgarh by 82-65 points in the Group-B match. Archie Patel scored 25 points for Gujarat while Ahana George scored 18 points. Komaldeep Kaur scored 29 points and Ishika Singh scored 18 points for Chhattisgarh. In another match in Group-B, Gujarat defeated the strong team of Uttar Pradesh by 86-77 points. Archie Patel contributed 30 points and Ahana George contributed 27 points for Gujarat. Ruby Rajput scored 24 points for Uttar Pradesh while Anushka Chauhan contributed 23 points.

Exciting clash in other matches:

In the men’s Group-A, Punjab and Chandigarh clashed. The match was tough as the players of both the neighbouring states were familiar with each other’s game. In the end, Chandigarh won by a close margin of 70-64 points. Gaurav Kumar Singh scored 19 points and Sanju Gajbhiye scored nine points for the winning team. Sahibjeet Singh scored 20 points for Punjab. In women’s group-B, girls from Punjab also came on the court and faced Chhattisgarh. Punjab’s team showed aggressive play and won the match by 76-43 points. Komalpreet Kaur scored 15 points for Punjab while Chanda Gautam scored 15 points. Komaldeep Kaur scored 21 points for Chhattisgarh while captain Ishika Singh contributed 10 points. In group-A, the match between Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan was the most exciting. There was a close competition between the two teams in every quarter. Both the teams showed aggressive play and focused on increasing the score. In the end, Tamil Nadu won the match by just five points and won the match by 85-80 points. Captain Antita Daisy scored 30 points for the winning team. Carlisoline Juhana also contributed 20 points to the team. Priyanka Pal scored 23 points for Rajasthan while captain Payal scored 16 points. In group-F, the match between Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry was one-sided. The Andhra Pradesh team dominated throughout and Puducherry’s game was scattered. Andhra Pradesh won the match by 72-36 points.