43rd Arise Steel Sub-Junior Nationals 2016 tips off in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, 1^st October 2016: On a cloudy and pleasant Saturday morning in Hyderabad, the 43^rd Sub-Junior National Championship for Boys and Girls 2016 tipped off at SATS Indoor Stadium here in Saroornagar. There was no dearth of energy on both the wooden courts in the stadium as the U-14 teams took to the court representing their respective states.

Hosts Telangana got off to a mixed start, with the boys team winning their Level 2, Group F game 42-21 over Bihar. The girls meanwhile got outclassed 46-29 by Uttar Pradesh in their Level 1 Group B game.

Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya is chief guest for the inauguration ceremony

Union Minister for Labour and Employment Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, who is also a three-time Parliamentarian from Secunderabad constituency, was the chief guest for the inaugural ceremony. Also present as guests were Mr Ajay Sud and Mr Shafiq Shaikh, Vice Presidents of Basketball Federation of India.

Mr Rajender Reddy, President of Telangana Basketball Association thanked Basketball Federation of India and its president Shri K Govindaraj for their support, while Mr R Sridhar Reddy, President of Hyderabad District Basketball Association presented the welcome address. Mr Norman Isaac, BFI executive committee member and General Secretary of the Telangana Basketball Association, introduced all the guests.

“The raw material for sports is below the age of twelve, so unless it is made compulsory in school curriculum and we give marks for sports participation, we will not get the raw material,” said Mr Rajender Reddy. “Tug of war used to be an Olympic sport long back but because of lack of interest it was removed from the Olympics, but still it continues to be in the ‘A’ Group in our sports list. Whereas, basketball, even though it is such a popular sport, has been degraded to ‘B’ Group. As a result of this, in our own state of Telangana, we had so many basketball players getting employed with Railways, but now that has stopped. We have brought this to the attention of the Sports Minister and the sports authorities and I hope that with the confidence that the public have in you, you can bring this to the attention of the Parliament and get this rectified.”

Mr Dattatreya noted all the points raised by Mr Reddy, and added, “I will definitely talk to Sports Minister Mr Vijay Goel and see that every student should play some sport. India has a vast number of basketball players, but due to a lot of political interference, the right encouragement is not forthcoming. I definitely feel that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi we will see that political interference should go from sports. All Federations should be run by sportspersons.”

Delhi Girls & Rajasthan Boys impress on Day 1

The day began with the Himachal Pradesh boys defeating neighbours Jammu and Kashmir 47-35, led by Churchill Bhardwaj’s 15 points. Jharkhand boys got the better of Gujarat in a close encounter that ended 48-41. Tamil Nadu boys were also involved in a tight match against the Delhi, managing to pull away in the fourth quarter for a 60-52 victory. Tamil Nadu’s R. Harish was the day’s top scorer thus far with 23 points. In the other level 2 boys’ games, Punjab and Puducherry registered blowout wins against Uttarakhand and Goa respectively.

The level 1 boys games today morning were one-sided affairs as Madhya Pradesh dominated against Kerala with a 40-9 win, while Rajasthan put up a massive 74 points in their win against Maharashtra. Andhra Pradesh came from behind to clinch a 58-56 victory against Uttar Pradesh on the basis of a balanced scoring effort. S. Nayeem put up 16 points for AP.

In the girls’ matches, Odisha and Uttarakhand were involved in a low-scoring but tense encounter that ended with Odisha edging past Uttarakhand 19-18. The other girls’ games in the first half today were lopsided as West Bengal beat Goa by 44 points, Andhra Pradesh cruised past Chandigarh 41-16 and Punjab crushed Bihar 52-4.

The Delhi girls began their sub-junior campaign with a 49-25 victory against Gujarat led by point guard Karitika’s sublime 21 points. Centre Asmat Kaur (14 pts) led the Madhya Pradesh girls to a 28-27 triumph over Karnataka in their opening game.

RESULTS FROM DAY 1 (1^st October 2016)

Girls:

Level 1:

Group A:

1. Madhya Pradesh (Asmat Kaur Taunq 14) bt Karnataka (Harini 7, Janani 5) 28-27 (7-4, 6-6, 5-8, 10-9)

Level 2:

Group C:

1. Delhi (Karitika 21, Trishala 11, Praki 11) bt Gujarat (Naomi Lakhanpal 8, Praasha Dabhi 8) 49-25 (14-7, 7-6, 16-6, 12-6)

Group D:

1. West Bengal (Shreya Nath 9, Priyanka Ghosh 8) bt Goa (Sejal Chaubey 2, Riya Palkar 2) 48-4 (16-0, 9-4, 15-0, 6-0)

Group E:

1. Punjab (Harsimran 12, Nitika 10, Manroop 9) bt Bihar (Pragya 2, F. Kumari 2) 52-4 (16-4, 17-0, 10-0, 9-0)

Group F:

1. Andhra Pradesh (V. Venkatalakshmi 17, A. Jasmine 10, N. Anjali 8) btChandigarh (Anjali 7) 41-16 (11-5, 16-2, 5-1, 9-8)
2. Odisha (Sarita Das 6) bt Uttarakhand (Sarveen Kaur 4, Chalsi Choudhary 4, Jacpreet Kaur 4) 19-18 (5-8, 6-2, 6-2, 2-6)

Boys:

Level 1:

Group A:

1. Madhya Pradesh (Sachindra 6, Mayank 6, Virat 6) bt Kerala (Sreehari 3)40-9 (16-4, 9-1, 12-2, 3-2)
2. Andhra Pradesh (S. Nayeem 16, D. Likith 12, SK Ahisha 12) bt Uttar Pradesh (Robin B. 16, Suraj 16) 58-56 (9-12, 16-15, 18-17, 15-12)

Group B:

1. Rajasthan (Sheikh Saif Ali 22, Mahaveer 16, Kamal Singh 12) btMaharashtra (Imran Khan 6, Mohd. Faiz Sheikh 6) 74-25 (29-4, 18-0, 9-8, 18-13)
2. Chhattisgarh (Pranav Sharma 12, R. Deepak 12) bt Karnataka(Achinthya 17) 45-26 (17-10, 5-1, 17-6, 6-9)

Level 2:

Group C:

1. Himachal Pradesh (Churchill Bhardwaj 15, Prabhjot Singh 11) bt Jammu and Kashmir (Rishabh Wazler 11, Rinku Singh 8) 47-35 (12-4, 6-13, 13-4, 16-14)
2. Jharkhand (Goutam Kumar 21) bt Gujarat (Rohan Khureshi 12, Paramveer Singh 10) 48-41 (17-8, 13-9, 11-14, 7-10)

Group E:

1. Punjab (Rohan 12, Khushdeep Singh 12, Gurdeep Singh 11) btUttarakhand (Rijik Kumar 9, Aman Veer 8) 58-28 (19-9, 18-6, 15-4, 6-4)
2. Puducherry (Shan Deepan 17, Nandhan Auro 15) bt Goa (Daniel D’silva 2) 54-2 (18-2, 6-0, 19-0, 11-0)

Group F:

1. Tamil Nadu (R. Harish 23, S. Harish 16, P. Hari H. Sudan 10) bt Delhi(Ashwanj 19, Tushar 13) 60-52 (13-18, 17-14, 18-11, 12-9)
2. Telangana (Harsh 15) bt Bihar (Sohail 6, Sagar 5) 42-21 (14-04, 8-6, 12-9, 8-2)