Haryana are back to winning ways, as they put forth a good performance to beat Mumbai Challengers -- the UBA Pro Basketball League Season-3 at the Balewadi Sports Complex, Badminton Court on Sunday. The first session was completely dominated by Haryana while Mumbai failed to make a mark. The gold will now take on Punjab in the first semi-final.
Haryana’s trio of Prakash Mishra (7pts), Himanshu Sharma (9pts) and Mayur Bhat (8pts) put their team on the front foot, in the first quarter. The team’s defense often forced Mumbai on their back foot, who missed several of their important chances to score in the first session.
Haryana, who lost their third match to Punjab, were completely dominating and hardly gave any chances to Mumbai to score. Mumbai’s shooter Dildar did his best to level the score, but soon it looked like a distant dream as Haryana were leading 33-20 at the end of first quarter.
Mumbai soon picked up where they left from as they quickly started to fill in the gaps. There was a point when Mumbai was trailing by more than 20 points at the beginning of second quarter, but they tried hard to bridge the gap. It took just a couple of minutes for an elated Haryana coach Pawan Kumar happiness to turn into disappointment, as it looked like Haryana actually gave up their lead.
Mumbai’s Gagandeep Singh (15pts), Ranbir Singh (13pts) and Jagdeep Singh (13pts) pulled up the sleeves as by half time, they were trailing by just 2 points. At the end of second quarter, Haryana were still leading 58-56.
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The crowd had totally gone fanatic by the start of the third quarter. Cheering helped the players, as they certainly gathered their lost confidence. Mumbai mostly banked on Haryana’s fouls, as the later made more than 10 fouls just in the third session.
Jagdeep continued his best performance throughout the sessions, as Mumbai relied heavily on him to level the scores. Overcoming a huge gap, Mumbai were lagging behind by just six points.
Haryana literally saved the blushes in the fourth quarter as the defense saved some important shots. Nonetheless, Haryana had the upper hand in match and entered the semi-finals.
Awarded the man of the match for his overall performance and 19 points, Mayur Bhat is totally up for the revenge in the semi-finals against Punjab. “The match was really awesome. The first session was great, we lost our grip in the next sessions but we won the match at the end. I guess that is what matters”.
Further adding, “I am sure we will win the semis and enter the finals. It will be a sweet revenge.”
Results: Haryana Gold (Prakash Mishra 17pts, Mayur Bhat 19pts, Himanshu 19pts) bt Mumbai Challengers (Jagdeep Bains 29pts, Gagandeep Singh 26pts) (33-20, 58-56, 80-74, 97-91)
