India win both Volley Gold, Binni bags Bronze in marathon

Colombo, Aug 27 (UNI) The eves tamed the hosts in straight sets, while their male counterparts had to toil in the middle as India outplayed Sri Lanka in finals to pocket both the Gold medals in volleyball in the 10th SAF Games here today.

Indian eves won the final 27-25, 25-20, 25-20, while the men's team edged out Sri Lanka 25-15, 21-25, 25-21, 25-19.

Meanwhile, in the final athletics event of the Games, India ended on a poor note, finishing with a Bronze as L Binning came third in marathon. The Indian clocked 2:29.16 for his Bronze and finished behind Sri Lankan AM Ajith Bandara (2:25.40) and Nepal's Arjun Kumar Basnet (2:28.10). The other Indian in the fray, KC Ramu did not finish the race.

India also earned a Silver and two Bronze medals from taekwondo.

In welterweight category, Ibrahim Khan came second, while Sandeep Kundu (middleweight) and Shingara Mattu (heavyweight) finished with Bronze.

In the men's volleyball final, India began on a strong note and was going great guns at 15-4 and though Sri Lanka played well in patches, the defending champions had no real problem in bagging the first set 25-15.

The hosts soon came up in the match, and levelled at 21-21, went the last four points in a row to win the set 25-21 and draw parity.

India's case was hampered by a finger injury to captain KJ Kapildev.

Jolted out of complacence, the Indians regained lead by winning the third set and MSKDU Premasri's wide serve in the fourth set saw the defending champion retain the Gold.

Earlier, Indian women spikers tamed a gritty Sri Lanka 27-25, 25-20 and 25-20 to win the Gold.

Despite it being a straight set win for India, Sri Lanka fought tooth and nail in the match, cheered by a full house partisan crowd at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium.

Pakistan beat Bangladesh 25-11, 25-15,25-17 to win the Bronze in the event.

In the final, both the Indian and Lankan eves matched each other shot by shot and went neck-and-neck with the score reading 20-20.

Frequent time outs were not enough to cool the nerves and the Lankans eves went 24-23 up before Priyanka Bora came up with a quick one to level the score. The lanky hitter was also instrumental behind two blocks that saw India won the set 27-25.

Things looked easier for the Indian eves in the second set as they raced to a 19-12 lead before relaxing a bit and allowing their opponents claim six of the next seven points and Sri Lanka eventually reduced to the gap to 21-19. That came as a wake up call for the Indians and Jhililata Sena's spike clinched the second set.

Despite down 0-2, the hosts simply didn't give up in the third set as well. Trailing 11-16, they made it 18-18. But the Indian eves bagged seven of the next nine points as Aswani Kumar's powerful spike crashed on the Lankan court to wrap up the match in India's favour.

UNI AY KP1738