Punjab cops prevail

Vadodara, April 21: Punjab Police thrashed Hyderabad Spikers in straight sets to race to the top of the league table in the first phase of t...

Vadodara, April 21: Punjab Police thrashed Hyderabad Spikers in straight sets to race to the top of the league table in the first phase of the Federation Cup Volleyball Championship, underway at the GSFC School Ground, here on Tuesday.

The Cops defeated Spikers 15-9, 15-9, 15-7 for a comfortable victory. With their wins against TNEB and Northern Railways earlier, Punjab Police now lead the round robin league table with six points, followed by TNED and ITI who have five points each from three matches.

KESB and Hyderabad Spikers are on the third spot with four points each from three mathces.

In the first set, the cops surged a 9-0 lead with some extremely effective spiking by Jagbir Singha and Gurdeep Singh who hit their shots as easily from the back court as from close to the net.

Bhupinder Singh, Sandeep Singh and Ratanlal too came up with occasional good smashes to help the cops weakup the match in just 76 minutes. The Hyderabad Captain Ajay Kumar Reddy looked a bit off-colour on Tuesday and theinternational star8217;s lucklustre game perhaps affected the team8217;s progress. Tough they took the initial lead in the second and third sets, they were unable to hold on to it and never looked like posing any great difficulty for the cops.

Last night Punjab Police had an even easier encounter against Northern Railways trouncing them 15-11, 15-6, 15-5 in just 64 minutes.

In another match Tamil Nadu Electricity Board wrapped up the match against Kerala State Electricity Board 15-10, 15-10, 15-8 in 59 minutes.

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In the women8217;s match, Tamil Nadu handed out Gujarat their most humiliating defeat, taking only 34 minutes to make mincemeat of them with a scoreline of 15-2, 15-2, 15-3.