Kerala men triumph; Manipur women reign supreme

Kerala defeated Haryana in an exciting final to win the men’s team title in badminton here on Tuesday.

H S Prannoy gave Kerala a bright start with a 21-14, 21-12 win over Neeraj Vasisht but Haryana hit back strongly and with just the final doubles left, the scores were tied 2-2.
In the decisive rubber, Alwin Francis and Arun Vishnu edged out Ketan Chahal and Akshit Mahajan 17-21, 21-11, 21-17 to trigger celebrations in the Kerala camp.

Kerala, however, lost the women’s final, with Telangana posting a 2-0 win in the final.

Results (Final):

Men’s team event: Kerala bt Haryana 3-2 (H S Prannoy bt Neeraj Vashist 21-14, 21-12; Munawar Mohammed lost to Ketan Chahal 21-12, 15-21, 11-21; Sanave Thomas/Rupesh Kumar bt Neeraj Vashist/Surender Rathee 21-4, 21-10; Shyam Prasad lost to Akshit Mahajan 13-21, 17-21; Alwin Francis/Arun Vishnu bt Ketan Chahal/Akshit Mahajan 17-21, 21-11, 21-17).

Women’s team event: Telangana bt Kerala 2-0 (Rituparna Das bt P C Thulasi 21-14, 21-18; Ruthvika Shivani/ Sikki Reddy bt Aparna Balan/ Arathi Sara Sunil 21-18, 18-21, 21-13).

Defeat for Karnataka

In handball Karnataka men suffered their second straight loss to stay at the bottom of Group B. After losing to Punjab earlier, the State men were outplayed 36-26 by Chhattisgarh.

The triathlon mixed team event saw Manipur strike gold, with Gujarat taking the silver and Maharashtra the bronze.

In women’s football, Manipur defeated Odisha 5-3 via penalty shoot out to clinch the gold medal. In regulation time, the score was 1-1. Haryana won the bronze defeating Kerala 2-0.

Mizoram had won the men’s football gold on Monday, with a 1-0 win over Punjab at Kozhikode. Services’ Satbir Singh topped in the men’s 15km scratch race in cycling at Thiruvananthapuram. He left behind Rajesh Chandrasekhar of Tamil Nadu and Pankaj Kumar of Haryana in silver and bronze positions. Kerala swept the top three spots in the women’s 10km scratch race, with Mahitha Mohan winning the gold followed by Rejani Vijayakumari and Bismi S.