Palpreet powers India past Indonesia

NAGPUR: Indian cagers made their presence felt in the Fiba Asia U-18 basketball championship, albeit a bit late. They managed to break the six-year jinx of finishing outside the top-10 with their second win in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) on Friday. Riding high on the heroics of Palpreet Singh Brar, Indian colts rallied splendidly to prevail over Indonesia 67-53. The win enabled India to set-up a play off for the ninth place against Syria.

India achieved a seventh place finish in 2004 while they were ninth in 1995 edition of the championship. The best finish so far for the Indian cagers was way back in 1970 when they finished fourth. Against Indonesia, their first of the two classification games, Indian cagers took time to get into the groove. After being down 14-16 in the first quarter, India made a comeback in the second period winning 18-8 to take a handy 8-point lead at the breather.

The third quarter was a close battle with India managing to keep their nose slightly ahead, winning 14-13, to stretch the lead further to 9 points. India began the last quarter with a flurry raking up a 21-16 lead and beating Indonesia, ranked 26 points below them, with a 14-point margin.

Punjab forward Palpreet was again the architect of India's win.

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