Maharashtra crash

After the initial period, Indian Bank, led by Sunny’s fast breaks, converted many turnarounds to a comfortable lead.

The Maharashtra-Madras Customs Group A match was expected to be close but the former’s lack of cohesion was evident on the court.

They started poorly and did not even find the right combination. Madras Customs ran up a 10-point lead (24-14) due to the way they dominated the boards and the ineffective Maharashtra forwards, Shibu George and Pankaj Deshmukh.

Maharashtra’s revival was led by Pankaj Gokhale (18 points).Maharashtra led 22-21 at half-time.

After half-time, it was the same story for Maharashtra as they fumbled and never got going. But despite this, they twice caught up with Madras Customs. In the final stretch, Deshmukh revived his side’s hopes with a three-pointer. But Devanathan, who won the Man of the Match award, and Satish Kumar guided the Chennai side to victory.

Results

Group A: Madras Customs 50 (G Sirikumar 13, P Devanathan 14, Joseph Xavier 11) bt Maharashtra 50 (Pankaj Deshmukh 18, Clarence Menezes 8).

Group B: Indian Bank 90 (Jayshankar Menon 17, B Sarvanan 11, R Suryashekhar 10, CV Sunny 8) bt Bombay YMCA 53 (Vijay Neygandhi 16, Bob Keeler 9).

Chirag overcomes D"Lima

Chirag Ramakrishnan scored a convincing win over Allan D"Lima 112-68, 98-84 in the Anthony D"Cruz Open Handicap snooker tournament, today at the Catholic Gykhana and sponsored by TBZ Jhaveri Bazar and Bharat Petroleum.

Results: Chirag Ramakrishnan (+10) bt Allan D"Lima (+55) 112-68, 98-84; L D’souza(+45) bt P Idnani (+55); S Kamdar (+55) bt D D’souza (+50); S Parekh (+50) bt R Hemani (+55) 123-97, 92-132, 113-94; T Pereira (+60) bt S Sarkar (+60) 114-71, 113-99; S Ghadge (+30) bt D Fernandes (+60) 105-71, 102-92.