NEW DELHI, DEC 28: Shahid Qureshi may not have played the game of his life. But the importance of being Qureshi and the immense value he can add to make Bihar, his team, click in crunch situation was brought out today. In a Group B seesaw battle, Bihar downed Railways 77-72 in the Pepsi National Basketball Championships at the Talkatora Indoor Stadium here tonight.With score at 71-70 in favour of Bihar, veteran Ram Kumar forced the clock stop with a foul on Qureshi. This allowed Qureshi two free throws but at the same time handed Railways ball possession. Qureshi missed one and basketed the second for 72-70. Ranjeet Singh did a similar favour and the Railway cager completed the task to level 72-72.With 16 seconds on the clock, Qureshi got the ball from handler Mohit Bhandari. And he took a calculated risk and his outside shooting was right on the mark. The last few seconds left could have reduced the margin for Railways by one basket but another foul earned two free throws for Bihar. The conversion byNishant Kumar virtually sealed the fate.Earlier, a knee injury to Clarence Menezes of Maharashtra and a knee-jerk attitude sent the team crashing out of the meet even as they faced relegation after five years. UP beat Maharashtra 73-59 and earned a berth in the quarter-finals while Karnataka men feasted on the packed stadium to another good fair in the morning even though they lost to Punjab 84-73.ResultsMen: Group A - MP 82 (Virender Joshi 30, Saji Thomas 23, Riazuddin 20) bt Bengal 60 (Amalendu Singh 20, Suhas Bhattacharjee 19, Sudip Chatterjee 14); TN 83 (Sridhar 13, Devanathan 15, Tony Lesley 11) bt Bengal 47 (Suhas Bhattacharjee 13); Punjab 84 (Parminder Singh Sr 25, Gagnesh Kumar 18, Parminder Singh Jr 12) bt Karnataka 73 (Murali Mohan 31, Basavaraj Murgod 13, BS Gautham 10). Group B UP 73 (Anup Minz 27, Rajendra Rathore 19) bt Maharashtra 59 (Satish Warrier 11, Shatrughna Gokhale 10). Group C - Delhi 71 (Sanjay Mohanty 19, Dalbir Singh 15, Sandeep Singh 14) bt Haryana 53 (Devender 16,Jaswant 15); Bihar 77 (Jaldeep Daliwal 18, Nishant Kumar 17, Shahid Qureshi 20, NS Rawat 11) bt Railways 72 (Ravi Kumar 19, Ranjit 18, Ram Kumar 14).Women: Group A - MP 54 (Savita Deswal 29, J Venu 14) bt AP 46 (Sofi Sam 20, D Anandi 10); Railways 73 (Apatna Ghosh 20, Sheeba Magon 12, Jiji Jose 14) bt Maharashtra 42 (Pradanya Mane 10, Manisha Kaprekar 11). Group B: Kerala 71 (Laiji George 22, Binu Cherian 15, Ambili Thomas 11) bt Punjab 32 (Kiranjeet Dhillon 9); Punjab 7 (Kiranjeet Dhillon 15, Savitri Guleria 13, Mandeep Khatra 10) bt Chandigarh 20 (Kamaldeep Kaur 10). Qualifier: UP 56 (Priyanka Singh 17) bt Rajasthan 32 (Nirmala Saini 16, Sonia Misra 10).
