Poona YMCA champs of All India Inter YMCA Basketball

Poona YMCA emerged champions at the All India inter-YMCA Basketball tournament. They were a few notches above any other side of the 16 YMCAs that vied with them for the Dalton McClalland shield.

In the final held at the packed Don Bosco indoor stadium, Poona YMCA beat Vishakapatnam YMCA 75-68, in an exciting match where the final score-line didn’t tell the real story of Poona’s domination. An interesting feature of their play was that their starting five played from start-to-finish without resorting to any substitution, a rarity in basketball.

Siddhant Shinde was the pick of the Pune lads, who dazzled the fans and his opponents alike with some deft shooting and smart defending. He alone accounted for 42 points, including five clean three-pointers that were a treat to watch. He even shared the burden of ball-handling for his team along with one of the Irani siblings that made up Poona’s playing five.

The Irani brothers – Rashid, Kaizad and Sarfaraz – between themselves notched up 29 points.

Poona’s performance in the final, as was the case in the earlier stages of the tournament had everything in it to earn praise from the experts but the Vishakapatnam YMCA’s lads weren’t merely tame losers. They at times surprised the eventual champions with bursts of speed and fast-breaks executed in copy book style. J Tarun Kumar was in excellent form and contributed to his team’s tally 29 points which he got through long-ranged three-pointers and quick burst of speeds to complete fast-breaks. Their playmaker T Venkateshwara (12 points) and Srinivasa Rao (11 points) ably supported Kumar but fell short of the Poona side.

Meanwhile, Ernakulum YMCA earned the bronze medal winning their third-placed match against last year’s runner-up Delhi YMCA 77-54.

Earlier on Sunday morning, Poona had earned their final slot by defeating Delhi 89-76 while Vishakapatnam YMCA beat Ernakulum YMCA 64-54 in their semi-final outing.

At the finals, Pravin Zantye who was the chief guest pledged his support to the work being done by YMCA in Goa. Another surprise visitor at the finals was Opposition Leader, Manohar Parrikar. Both Zantye and Parrikar witnessed a better part of the duel between Poona and Vizag and were introduced to the players at half-time.

Meanwhile, all the four semi-finalists were given a free holiday-package by Panjim YMCA President, PM Vaz, which the teams can utilize anytime in the year.