India rule in Badminton

From a Reporter

SHILLONG, Feb 6: As expected India thoroughly domited Day 1 of the badminton event of the 12th South Asian Games at the NEHU, SAI Special Area Games beating Maldives and Bangladesh in the men’s team event league stage.

India won 3-0 on both occasions leaving little room for the rivals to make their presence felt.

Placed in Group A with Maldives, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, the Indian men’s team of K Srikanth, Ajay Jayram, Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy, HS Prannoy, Akshay Dewalker and Pray Chopra made little work of their opponents in the morning session.

While Md Ajfan of Maldives did offer a semblance of resistance against K Srikanth in the first game of the day notching up a score of 17-21, it was all India thereafter.

Srikanth won 21-17, 21-12. Jayram, meanwhile, was a man in a hurry and beat his Maldives opponent Zayan Zaki 21-8, 21-5 to make it 2-0 for India. Later Manu Attri and Sumeeth Reddy beat the Maldives doubles pair of Zaki and Rasheed 21-8, 21-10 to close the game in India’s favour. Later in the second session India repeated the feat against a spirited Bangladesh side. While HS Prannoy beat Ayman Jaman 21-14, 21-13, Rais Uddin put up a dogged fight, though only for a while against India’s B Sai Praneeth, but eventually went down 21-17, 21-18. Later it was cakewalk for the doubles pair of Manu and Sumeeth who beat Ayman and Rais 21-8, 21-9 to clinch thematch.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan and Sri Lanka men’s team also won two games each. While Pakistan beat Nepal 3-2 in a close contest in the morning session, Sri Lanka walked over a young Bhutan side 3-0. In the second session Pakistan beat Bhutan 3-0, whole the Lankans repeated the feat against Nepal beating the Himalayan tion 3-0. Afghanistan, meanwhile went down to Bangladesh and Maldives by a margin of 3-0. In the women’s team event on Saturday Bangladesh beat Maldives 3-0, while Nepal beat Afghanistan by the same margin. Sri Lanka too beat Pakistan 3-0. It was undoubtedly India’s day as the hosts did not even lose a set in the over two sessions of play.

On Sunday, the famed Indian women’s team will be action against Nepal at 10 AM.

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