ALLAN D’CRUZ
DABOLIM: India outclassed Guinea Bissau 82-48 in the men’s basketball match at jam-packed Dr SP Mukharjee Indoor Stadium, Taleigao plateau.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
Grewal Narender and Singh Pratham were the joint highest scorers for team India converting 14 points while Singh Palpreet also added 12 points in the team’s high scoring win.
India Coach Scott Flemmings, brought in Goans lads Lambert Godinho and Daley Fernandes in the final 5 minutes of the final quarter as the crowd cheered. Lambert scored two points, as Daley failed to score from his two attempts.
India got off to a good start right from the word go with the scoreboard showing 19-9 in the favour of India in the first quarter.
The second quarter started with Guinea Bissau scoring the first points and despite few penalties being awarded against India, the host went on to create a good lead over their counterparts, with scoreboard revealing 46-18 securing India’s biggest lead 39-3.
The third quarter got off to another flyer as they took a 67-30 lead with the trio Grewal, Prathan and Palpreet sharing the scoring list. Briguvanshi was seen in full action as he chipped in 9 points.
India’s tall army with their fast-breaks game was proving difficult for Guinea Bissau to deal with, where the visitors only scored 30 points in the second half while the home team scored 36 showing more fighting team spirit better than the first half. With the final score India 82, Guinea Bissau 48.
Indian coach Flemming stated that “we were intended to play defensive but with other team not quite attacking we transitioned well to counter”.
“We are playing against one of the best team on Saturday. The break would help the players to recover and watching the opponent’s match tomorrow will help us to plan our strategy”, Flemming added.
“The two Goans are excellent. The arena is one of the best I have ever seen in India and in future we may get a MBA team here to play, added Flemming.
Guinea Bissau coach stated, “India’s performance was really good and more than expected. The primary difficulty was height of the Indians”.
Earlier, Cape Verde thrashed Macao 96-46 in men’s basketball match with Mendes Kennet scoring 18 points.
In the women’s category, Mozambique dethroned Macao 111-29 with Dongue Leia and Ngulela Deolinda scoring 27 and 24 points each.
