Kathmandu, Oct 1: India suffered a 0-3 set defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the last league match in the volleyball events of the eight SAF games today.Giving a scrappy performance, coupled with erratic spiking and poor defence, India went down 16-25, 22-25, 23-25 in a match that lasted little over an hour.Following the defeat, India finished second in the three-team group with one win and a loss behind Pakistan which maintained a clean slate and topped the group.In the semifinals, India will now meet Group B topper Bangladesh while Pakistan will clash with Nepal. Bangladesh finished their league engagements with two wins and Nepal with one win finished second in the group.Seven for matmenIndian matmen proved their dominance in no uncertain terms pocketing seven of the eight golds as the wrestling events ended.But for the loss of Surender Kumar in the 97-130 kg category, rest of the Indians won the golds to boost the overall medals tally.Kripa Shankar Patel set the trend winning the 48-54 event gold, pinning his Pakistani rival Robin Mahsih. Then Manoj Kumar warmed up for the World Championship in Turkey to be held later this month with an easy victory over Papoo Pehlwan of Pakistan in the 58 kg category.Mukesh Kumar and Sujit Mann Singh maintained the tempo, bagging the 63 kg and 69 kg golds, while Pawan Kumar (76 kg), Anuj Kumar (97-130kg) and Shamsher Singh (97 kg) completed the day on a happy note winning the respective categories.Overcoming vagaries of weather and his own pistol, ace shooter Jaspal Rana equalled the SAF Games record on his way to gold medal in the 25m centre five pistol event, while Anjali Vedpathak just missed the record by a fraction as India won four of the five golds in the shooting events.India won four of the five golds to take the tally to 14, besides seven silvers and four bronze medals. Sri Lanka won the other gold decided today.It was a below par performance by Jaspal Rana as the fickle weather affected the sight of the shooters. However, the ace Indian marksman came came up with a superb 581 to win his second individual gold in as many days.As happened in the Bangkok Asian Games where he had some problems with the pistol, the front sight of his pistol got loosened, which was far below his personal best of world record breaking performance of 591 points during the Imphal National Games. He had also done 589 thrice in the Coimbatore Nationals in 1995, in the 1998 Asian Games and again in Bangalore this year.``I don't think that might be the reason for the performance. You cannot do well every day,'' Jaspal said. ``But I am happy.''``With better facilities, I could have done better. The light is bad, it is same for everyone,'' he added.``In the duelling round, the card turns for three seconds. But at the range in Delhi, it is about 3.5 seconds, which is quite enormous for a shooter to hit the target,'' he said. WrestlingResults: 45-54 kg category: gold- kripa shankar Patel (ind), silver - robin masih (pak, bronze- Dinesh siriwardena (sl). 58kg category: manoj Kumar (ind), papoo pehlwan (pak), sobhi yadav (nep). 63kg category: mukesh Kumar (ind), zahid Khan (pak), md kamal hossain (ban). 69kg category: sujit mann (ind), ali mohammed (pak), Upendra Das bairagi (nep). 76kg category: pawan Kumar (ind), usman mohammed (pak), jamalludin (ban). 85kg category: anuj Kumar (ind), umar mohammed (pak), B Y yadav (nep). 97kg category: shamsher Singh (ind), DOST ali (pak), saran raji yadav (nep). 97-130kg category: basir mohammed (pak), surender Kumar (ind) D R yadav (nep).
