NEW DELHI, October 5: Nishant Kumar's excellent performance, coupled with Shahid Qureshi's guile, not only helped Tisco keep a clean slate in pool B but also enabled them sound a firm warning to the rest of the teams in the fray, particularly holders Punjab Police, in the Master Prithvi Nath Sharma Memorial Basketball tournament at the Ajmal Khan Park here today.Tisco also became the first team to post a score of 100 plus this year as they defeated runners-up Western Railway 102-82. They have one last match against Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and from the way they have performed so far, the team from Jamshedpur should win it comfortably to top the pool.Though Western Railway lost to Tisco, the former have also qualified for the semi-finals, having beaten ONGC earlier and BSF 82-62.Tisco's swift oncourt movement and accurate shooting made them favourties to win the game against Western Railway. But the latter was expected to give some fight, particularly after they had finished runners-up to Punjab Police in the last edition of the tournament.But Western Railway hoopsters failed to match the superiority of Tisco as Nishant Kumar (37) was simply unstoppable. Added to this was the problem of screening the fleet-footed Qureshi, who made easy inroads into the rival territory to pass the ball to Nishant Kumar.The Railwaymen solely depended on skipper Ram Kumar for scoring and the tall cager never let the team down. Though he was guarded heavily with three men from Tisco surrounding him, Ram Kumar (36) proved too hot to handle. His outside shooting did pose some worries to Tisco but they warded it off with excellent screening.Again it was Ram Kumar who topscored with 28 in the match against BSF. BSF, who fought well initially thrown in the towel with the free-flowing Ram Kumar taking over. Mahinder Junior and Mahinder Senior also did their bit for Western Railway, contributing 16 and 10 each.With just three minutes on the clock, BSF seized the lead for the first time to go up 28-26 in the first half. After that they slackened in their efforts and it was left to Western Railway to lead all the way.In a league match between Eastern Railway and Delhi in the women's section, Delhi were handicapped by the absence of Mandeep, who was suffering from high fever, and went down 42-69 after putting up a gallant fight. Even the prolific Nishitha Chaudhar was rendered ineffective after she tiwsted her ankle. Shavni took control of the game for Delhi and notched up 15 points with Reshmi and Nishitha contributing 11 each. For Eastern Railway, Rekha Chaudhary topscored with 25 and Phelomena Joseph shot 14 points.ResultsMen: Tisco 102 (Nishant Kumar 37) bt Western Railway 82 (Ram Kumar 36) HT: 50-27; Punjab Red 69 (Pradeep Randhawa 24) bt Prithvi Nath Club 56 (Amit Kumar 15) HT: 32-35; Western Railway 82 (Ram Kumar 28, Mahinder Kunar Jr 16, Mahinder Kumar Sr 19, Uday 9) bt Border Security Force 62 (Vipin Kumar 18, Virender Singh 15, Satyanarayana 13) HT: 37-33.Women: Eastern Railway 69 (Rekha Chaudhary 25, Phelomena Joseph 14, Aparna Ghosh 10) bt Delhi 42 (Shavni 15, Reshmi 11, Nishitha 11) HT 37-29; Central Railway 70 (Jeo Jose 22) bt Punjab 64 (Prabhjot 28) HT: 35-34.
