ONGC and Tamil Nadu (Rest of TN) faced each other at the grand finals of 60th All India Basketball Tournament for Men on Sunday, and with an unyielding attitude, ONGC overcame a valiant Tamil Nadu to lift the Championship.
It was a power-packed start for Tamil Nadu, with Rishikesh (No.2), Justine (No.13) Vijay Kumar (No.46) and the rest of the team pushing TN to an incredible first quarter end with a 4-point lead over ONGC. Tajinder of ONGC made a few remarkable plays still TN was in control.
At Qtr 2, ONGC upped their game. Tajinder and Aaron kept cutting their point deficit but Tamil Nadu remained unstoppable throughout but they also gave 5 fouls in 5 mins. Every minute mistake they made was well exploited by ONGC but TN was not willing to give the lead that easy.
With just 3:45 mins remaining in the first half, TN had 30 points and ONGC was down by 5. But a 3-pointer by Tajinder reduced it to 2. ONGC’s Ishan added a 2 pt., and the game was tied 30-30 with just 2:30 mins remaining. At the end of the first half ONGC turned the game in their favor with 6 point-lead, thanks to Ishan for rising to the occasion.
Qtr 3 is pure magic, as Tamil Naidu’s Rishi (2) delivered back to triple daggers straight into the core of ONGC who had just taken a 1 point-lead of 41 to 40 with 4:11 mins remaining in Qtr 3.
Rishi hit a 2 pt, then a back to back 3 pt to make it 41-48, and the crowd went wild for Tamil Nadu. An experienced ONGC evened the score to 48-48 and later took a 1 point-lead at the end of Q3.
It was close fight for the two team and the final Qtr. The brave Tamil Nadu managed to score 66 while ONGC had 71 pts, and the finals ended in their favor.
Results (Men):
1 st place – ONGC, 2nd place – Tamil Nadu, 3rd place – Indian Bank and 4th – KSEB.
Rishikesh of Tamil Nadu received the player of the match award.
