National Basketball Championship – Indian Railways reigns supreme with twin titles

It was double delight for the Indian Railways at the 75th senior National basketball championship at the Nehru Indoor Stadium on Sunday.

In the women’s section, Railways defeated Kerala 75-66 to clinch its eighth consecutive crown and 41st overall.

In the men’s category, Railways dethroned defending champion Tamil Nadu, which was going for a hat-trick of titles, 77-69.

For Railways, it was a collective effort led by Arvinder Singh, who topped the scoring with 18 points. He was well supported by the likes of Kanwar Gurbaz Singh Sandhu and skipper Palpreet Singh, helping Railways reclaim the big prize it last won in 2010.

During the pre-match training routine, TN players’ shooting was off-target, almost a sign of things to come. In the first quarter, as Railways nailed their shots, TN fluffed a simple one and allowed the visitors to take a 20-7 lead that it never relinquished.

The Railways’ defence too was impressive and never allowed the likes of A. Anantharaj and Muin Bek Hafeez find space to nail the three-pointers.

For TN, only Arvind Kumar Muthukrishnan scored 29 points, but the others failed to step up.

Earlier in the evening, the Railways women were stretched by a spirited Kerala team in a fiercely contested match, fitting of a summit clash.

The teams were neck and neck for most parts of the match until late in the final quarter. Trailing 61-47, Kerala scored 10 points on the bounce and quickly narrowed the gap to just three points in the middle of the fourth quarter.

However, Railways hit back, scoring nine points in a row to swell the lead back to 12, which helped it defend its crown.

In the play-off matches, Delhi beat Uttar Pradesh 70-61 and Tamil Nadu eased past Madhya Pradesh (76-49) to clinch the bronze in the men’s and women’s sections respectively.

The results (finals):

Women: Indian Railways 75 (K.B. Harshitha 23, Pushpa Senthilkumar 22, P. Priyanka 11, Dharshini Thirunavukkarasu 10) bt Kerala 66 (Sreekala Rani 26, Kavitha Jose 22, Aneesh Cleetus 10).

Men: Indian Railways 77 (Arvinder Singh 18, Kanwar Gurbaz Singh Sandhu 14, Sahaij Pratap Singh Sekhon 14, Palpreet Singh Brar 12, Princepal Singh 10) bt Tamil Nadu 69 (Arvind Kumar Muthukrishnan 29, Baladhaneshwar Poiyamozhi 13).