Lankans down Nigeria 3-2 for second victory

Chintana Wasala reporting from India

VOLLEYBALL: Sri Lanka recorded their second victory in the Commonwealth Volleyball Championship against Nigeria 3-2 in the tournament that went on for all five sets (25-15, 21-25, 25-17, 19-25, 15-13) This game offered all the thrills to thousands of spectators who gathered at the Nethaji Indoor Stadium yesterday.

The last set became a real thriller, with no one could predict the winner till the very last minute of the game. Before the game, most of the spectators foretold that Sri Lanka will have an easy go against the Nigerians and the first set was something that made their beliefs stronger. Lankans won the set easily at 25-15.

But in the second set Nigerians made a strong comeback as they did not let the Lankan boys to go beyond them since 6-7. After that, they maintained a gap and turned the set in their favour.

But the third set brought an easy victory for the Lankan as they repeated what they did in the first set to end the 22-minute set at 25-17. The fourth set made it harder for the Lankans as the block wall set by the Nigerians was well maintained.

The Nigerian block made of Ani Christopher, Anyasodike Harrison and Usman Abdulla spoiled most of Lankan attempts of scoring.

The Nigeria’s Mudo Marcell served brilliantly with a top speed taking a lesson from Sri Lanka’s Sameera Dissanayake. But that kind of a serve did not work out for Sameera today. At the end of the fourth set, scoreboard showed 25-19 in favour of the Nigerians.

That made the game to step onto the most fascinating stage the fifth set for the first time in this tournament. Sri Lankans were always ahead from the start of the set but Nigerians were closely following. At last, a breath taking final set ended with Lankans winning the set at 15-13. Udaya Rukmal scored most of the points for Sri Lanka with a contribution of 19.

Canada v New Zealand

Canada made an easy 3-0 (25-10, 25-15, 25-16) victory over the less experienced New Zealanders in the first game of the day. The Canadian team showed their excellence though the team present here in India is the secondary national team of Canada.

‘Our first team has gone through a busy schedule over the past months, so we brought here our second team. We are happy the way they are going on because they are our future’ said the head coach Georges Laplante.

New Zealand has lost all three matches they played in the first round.

India v Australia a great fight

India won 3-1 after providing the thousands of spectators the chance of viewing a great game which went on for four sets of (19-25, 25-21, 25-23, 27-25). This was the final game of the first round, which is rated as the big fight in the first round.

Australia fought very impressively but they could not overcome in front of the crowd support that India had.

Some referee’s decisions were suspicious and broke the moral of the Aussie players at the last minute.

Almost a full house of spectators were present at the Nethaji Stadium and crowd was cheering their home team right from the moment they entered the stadium for warm up.

Indian team is the favourites to win the tournament along with the Aussies.

The minister in-charge of Sports, Youth Services and Transport, Government of West Bengal, Shri Subhas Chakraborthy has announced a cash award of Rs. Five lakhs to the Indian team, if they win the gold medal in this championship.