Indian sports wrap, November 13: Manipur beat defending champion Punjab to reach semifinals


HOCKEY

Haryana to face UP and Manipur to clash with Odisha in men’s Sr National hockey semis

After eight days of largely one-sided matches in the Group stage of the Hockey India-14th Senior National men’s championship, the quarterfinal ties at the SDAT-Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here on Wednesday turned out to be absorbing, with nearly all the matches going down the wire.  

Of the four last-eight contests, two went to penalty shoot-outs and the remaining two were engaging. 

In the biggest upset of the tournament, Manipur knocked out defending champion Punjab via tiebreaker (3-3 in regulation time and 4-3 in shoot-out). Later, Odisha entered its first semifinals, with a hard-fought victory over Karnataka in shoot-out (3-1). 

Haryana, two-time champion and last year’s finalist, staged a remarkable comeback to script a 5-1 win–inclusive of a hat-trick by Rohit–over Maharashtra. 

Trailing 0-1 till the third quarter, Haryana scored all its five goals in the fourth quarter. However, it was heartbreak for the host as Uttar Pradesh beat Tamil Nadu 3-1. 

The day, however, belonged to Manipur. It is the first time in the history of Nationals a North-Eastern State has reached the last four. 

“It is a historic day for us. Beating Punjab is a huge achievement. Our experienced players including Olympians Nilakanta Sharma, Kothajit Singh and Chinglensana Singh, quite a few senior Internationals and junior players played really well. We didn’t give up till the last,” said Manipur’s head coach Moirangthem Rinash Meitei. 

Thursday is a rest day. In the semifinals on Friday, UP will take on Haryana while Manipur will clash with Odisha. 

The results (Quarterfinals)

Manipur 3 (Cyril Lugun 30, 36, 51) vs Punjab 3 (Maninder Singh 18, Ravneet Singh 24, 59); Penalty shoot-out: Manipur 4 (Waribam Nirajkumar Singh 2, Moirangthem Rabichandra Singh, Kothajit Singh) bt Punjab 3 (Harjeet Singh, Maninder Singh, Pardeep Singh). 

Haryana 5 (Rajinder Singh 48, Rohit 53, 59, 60, Pankaj 54) bt Maharashtra 1 (Aniket Gurav 12). 

UP 3 (Chandan Singh 3, Rajkumar Pal 18, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay 34) bt TN 1 (S. Shanmugavel 9).

Odisha 3 (Mangal Lohar 14, Shilanand Lakra 20, Pratap Lakra 50) drew with Karnataka 3 (Pruthvi Raj 5, Bharath Mahalingappa Kurtakoti 11, G. Vishwas 26); Penalty shoot-out: Odisha 3 (Sudeep Chirmako, Matiyas Dang, Sunit Lakra) bt Karnataka 1 (Mohd. Rahul Mouseen). 

-Keerthivasan K

BRIDGE

Asha Sharma, Puja Batra clinch top honours in National Ranking Bridge C’ship

Asha Sharma and Puja Batra from New Delhi clinched the top honours in the ladies pair competition in the National Ranking Bridge Championship here on Wednesday.

Asha and Puja, who were the overnight leaders at the end of the qualifying round, maintained the superiority among the 18 finalists in the final phase of the competition.

The Delhi pair found its rhythm at the halfway stage to put up a strong performance, finishing with 56 IMPs that helped them win the ladies pair crown.

Mumbai’s Usha Kabra and Kolkata’s Bharati Dey finished runner-up with 50 IMPs, while another pair from Delhi in Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain was third with 37 IMPs.

The winning pair of Asha and Puja received prize money of Rs 40,000, while the runner-up combination of Usha and Bharati got Rs 30,000. Devi and Alka received Rs 20,000, and the pairs up to the eighth position also received cash awards.

The mixed teams and mixed pairs events will be held later this week.

Final positions (top 8):

1. Asha Sharma and Puja Batra, 2. Usha Kabra and Bharati Dey, 3. Devi Bhatnagar and Alka Jain, 4. Subhasree Basu and Meenal Thakur, 5. Aditi Jhaveri and Marianne Karmarkar, 6. Bindiya Kohli and Priya Balasubramanian, 7. Anjali Karthikeyan and Ritu Bangaria, 8. Veena Bobb and Ramani Menon.

-PTI



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