SHILLONG: Hosts India made light work of their opponents in the men’s team event of badminton at the NEHU, SAI Special Area Games here on Saturday beating Maldives and Bangladesh in the league stage of the event.
A dominant 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 Pranay J Chopra were in full control of the morning session encounters beating their rivals in straight sets.
While Md Ajfan of Maldives did offer a semblance of resistance against K Srikanth in the first set 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. Praneeth has replaced P Kashyap in the Indian squad.
Meanwhile, it was cakewalk for the doubles pair of Manu and Sumeeth who beat Ayman and Rais 21-8, 21-9 to clinch the match.
The Pakistan and Sri Lanka men’s teams also won two games each. While Pakistan beat Nepal 3-2 in a close contest in the morning session, Sri Lanka walked past a young Bhutan side 3-0.
In the second session Pakistan beat Bhutan 3-0, while the Lankans repeated the feat against Nepal beating the Himalayan nation 3-0.The Sri Lanka side too was impressive in both men’s and women’s team events,
Afghanistan, meanwhile, went down to Bangladesh and Maldives by a margin of 3-0.
In the women’s team event on Saturday Bangla-desh beat Maldives 3-0, while Nepal beat Afghanistan by the same margin. Sri Lanka too beat Pakistan 3-0. Come Sunday, the famed Indian women’s team will play Nepal at 10 AM.
