Rusty start by home teams

The inclusion of speedy international Sheeba Maggon, back after a truncated stint with a US college, lent the Western offence bite, as Sheeba combined well with ball-handler Shanti Saldanha. But too many turnovers and a not-so-comforting shooting performance must be a causefor concern to coach Riaz Qadri. Qadri said, 8220;This was the first match and the girls are just getting into rhythm. That is why I wanted them to play for longer durations.8221;

Results

Men: Western Railway, Ajmer 71 Ram Kumar 13, Ranjeet Singh 10 bt North Frontier Railway 22 Rajib Bora 13 HT 37-8; DLW 69 Amit Singh 19, SK Hooda 10, Sandeep Yadav 12 bt DCW 46 Manjit Singh 17, Mahesh Kumar 11 HT 38-22; Southern Railway 69 S Vainadeyan 11, R Shivashankar 12, J Jayaprakash 13 bt North-Eastern Railway 45 Bhawar Singh 22 HT 43-29; South-Central Railway 73 D Babu 13, Venkat Rajesh 19, Ravi Kumar 19 bt Northern Railway 46 Tekpal 14 HT 30-30.

Women: Western Railway 70 Ivy Cherian 22, Sheeba Maggon 12, Lincy Joseph 10, Meena Singh 10 bt North-Eastern Railway 25 Avneet Kaur 7 HT 27-13; Central Railway 56 Geo Jose 10, Jiji Jose 14, Sindhu 10 bt Northern Railway 47 Shivani Gupta 10, Poonam 21 HT 35-28.