Indian eves bite the dust

For India, it was their fourth consecutive defeat and will conclude their league engagements Tuesday with a game against Japan who have won two of their four outings.

Regardless of the outcome of their remaining league matches, both India and Thailand will be involved in a play-off against the top two teams from Level-2. The winners of the play-off games will earn the right to play in Level-1 at the next ABC competition.

Japan have won two matches (Chinese Taipei and Thailand) and lost to China and Korea in the first match Monday, while Thailand boasts off a win over India.  The hosts have thus far lost all their four matches.

The only time India were in front against Thailand was at the very start when they took a 4-2 advantage. However, once Thailand players got into their stride, the hosts were always under pressure and in a catch-up mode. Yet, with Thailand leading 39-32 at half-time, the match looked very much in the balance. Indian skipper Geetu Anna Jose did mark her presence by scoring 23 points. India’s best moments were in the third quarter when they matched Thailand point for point as the teams scored 17 apiece.

Earlier, defending champions Korea came up with a late burst to turn back a 35-42 defeat into a 82-68 victory to remain unbeaten in the league after four matches.

Results: Level-I: Korea 82 (Jung Eun Park 17, Kwe Ryong Kim 16, Jung Eun Kim 15, Yeon Ha Beon 14, Sun Min Jung 13) bt Japan 68 (Yuko Oga 16, Kumiko Yamada 13, Yoshie Sakurada 13),
Thailand 78 (Juthamas Jantakan 20, Juthathip Mathuros 16, Charothai Suksomwong 16) bt India 68 (Geethju Anna Jose 23, Prashanthi Singh 16, Anitha Pauldorai 13).
Level-II: Malaysia 81 (Siew Teng Ang 19, beng Fong Goh 11, Suik May Kew 10) bt Sri Lanka 45 (Premila M. Fernando 15, Inoka Sandama Lijuwan Pedige 13, Benica Thalagala 9).
Kazakhstan 75 (Natalya Kuzmicheva 20, Lyudmila Sedova 14, Anastassiya Alishauskaite 13) bt Uzbekistan 70 (Alla Krasovbkaya 14, Irina Polunina 14, Yelena Khusnitedinova 10).
Lebanon 60 (Chada Nasr 16, Chantele Anderson 15, Nayla Alameddine 13) bt Philippines 35 (Chovi Borja 19, Cassandra Tioseco 9).