Within two hours of their landing, the Indian cagers shaked off their jetlag and the unduly long fight to begin their campaign in the Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) Championships at Harbin (China) on a rousing note today.Veteran Parminder Singh spearheaded the Indian onslaught to score a thrilling 94-74 win over fancied Kuwait in their opening game. They take on Malaysia in their next game tomorrow.According to information received here, the S Robinson-led Indians played a percentage game throughout and kept the pressure on their Asian rivals. If playmaker Sambaji Kadam and Sridhar combined well to feed the shooters upfront, it was Parminder and skipper Robinson who did the bulk of scoring to help India surge ahead 19-12 by the end of the first quarter.The Indians increased their lead further, thanks to some excellent play in the second quarter with a 23-point lead to be 47-24 at half time. This forced the Kuwaiti cagers on the back foot and it was visible in the third quarter when they were finding the going really tough despite making amends for their mistakes in the second quarter.Though the Kuwaitis managed to stage a comeback in the third quarter, the lead was quite sizeable for the Indians that they led by 17 points at the end of the third quarter. With better execution and fine work under the ring by the Desraj-Robinson combine India never looked back. When the last quarter began, the Indians only had to keep playing the way they began and that is precisely what they did. In the end, the Indians had won the game with a lot to spare — 20 points.Brief scores: India 94 (Parminder 18, Desraj 26, SP Kadam 8, Riyazuddin 10, S Robinson 21, Sridhar 11) bt Kuwait 74 (Haitham 18, Osmapmu 17, Abdullah 11, Al Abdullah 8, Sulaiman 7).
