Indian women cagers suffer second successive defeat

Melbourne, Mar 18 (UNI) There seemed to be no end to the woes of the Indian women cagers who suffered their second successive humiliating defeat, going down to England 57-104 in the Basketball competition of the Commonwealth Games here today.

Indian girls, who had lost to Australia in the opener, again found themselves all at sea against the seasoned campaigners from England.

To the credit of the losers, they did put up a semblance of fight in the first quarter which saw them trailing 19-25. The English girls were fast and their scoring was superb. They kept the ball among themselves and the Indians found it hard to snatch the ball from them.

The Indians seemed to have lost steam as the game entered in the second quarter in which they scored 16 points as against 38 by their rivals.

Subsequently, the Indians threw in the towel as they looked tired and out of their breath.

The Indians scored just six points in the third round compared to 11 by their rival and in the last, they added 16 points while the English girls scored 30 points to complete the rout.

Andrea Congreaves and Shelly Boston spearheaded the English attack and top scored with 17 points each. The Indian defence wilted under repeated attacks which came from all corners of the court.

Rosalee Mason created too many opening for her side and the Indians were hard put to foil the marauding rivals.

For India, it was Anitha Pauldurai who top scored with 16 points followed by Shiba Maggon (11).

Scores: England 104 (Andrea Congreaves 17, Shelly Boston 17, Rosalee Mason 12, Jo Sarjant 10, Katie Crowly 9, Kristy Lavin 9).

India 57 (Anitha Pauldurai 16, Sofi Sam 11, Divya Singh 6, Anna Jose 6).

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