Sri Lanka rout India - 93/21

By Leslie Fernando

NETBALL: Perfect coordination and quick intelligent play saw Sri Lanka netballers completely outclass the Indian side by 93 goals to 21 in the Telecom Dialog Tri Nation series played at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium yesterday.

Sri Lanka led in all four quarters 23-1, 23-6, 25-7 and 22-7. Almost all the members of the Sri Lanka team had a hand in the rousing win. The match started on a fast note with Sri Lanka dominating play. In the first quarter Sri Lanka was enjoying a comfortable 23-1 goal lead and seemed set for a overwhelming victory.

Goal Shoot Chamila Jayawardena and goal attack Sashika Samarasinghe played their usual game and both slipping in goal after goal. The score kept mounting rapidly in the second quarter 46-7 (23-6) due brilliant to shooting by both Chamila and Sashika. In the third quarter Akila Jayawardena and Tarshanee Sivalingam replaced Chamila and Sashika and both also gave a good account scoring 25 goals between them. At the end of the third quarter Sri Lanka led 71-14.

Chamila and Sashika came back for the fourth quarter and they continued their good shooting.

Good team work and cohesive play of the entire Sri Lanka team enabled shooters to put the finishing touches to all the good moves.

Skipper Gayathri Lankathilaka, Priscilla Koch, Saduni Bollagala and Sujani Dilrukshi were outstanding in addition to the goal shoot and goal attack.

The Indian girls never clicked as a team and as a result their play was ragged. Poor passes and poor shooting was the order of the day. However there was one player centre S. Preeti who impressed with her good interceptions at times and timely passes but her effort seemed to be vain as the other players were never able to take advantage. P. Breethi (11) and N. Reeta (10) scored for India.

Umpires: Ganga Uswatta and Decima Fernando.

With this remarkable win Sri Lanka qualified to meet Maldives in the final today at 4.14 p.m.

In the encounter played in the morning session (2nd Match of the series) Maldives triumphed over India by 58 goals to 26.

Maldives led in the first three quarters 18-6, 16-3, 14-5 while India took the fourth quarter 12-10. Sri Lanka defeated Maldives by 64 goals to 32 in the first match played on Friday.

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