BENGALURU: Holders Indian Railways and Kerala teams will clash in the men’s and women’s finals, respectively, of the 64th national volleyball championships on Sunday. In the semifinals at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here on Saturday, Kerala recorded a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Punjab in a nail-biting clash. Railways proved to be far too superior for Tamil Nadu as they crushed them 3-0.
Earlier, Railways women, also defending champs, breezed past West Bengal 3-0 to make the women’s final. They will take on Kerala, who slammed Tamil Nadu 3-0 with ease.
Punjab stormed to a 2-0 lead and looked set to topple Kerala. But they hardly expected a Kerala resurgence as they stormed back to claim three straight sets.
Though the first two sets were well-contested, with both teams not yielding an inch, Punajb’s superior strike power saw them thunder down winners with regularity as Gurinder Singh, Ramandeep Singh and Hardeep Singh popped up on either flank to find vacant spots. At 25-19, 25-23, Punjab were in the driver’s seat.
But a pep talk from coach Abdul Nazer saw Kerala tighten their net play and deny Punjab openings. Ratheeesh, Manu V, Ragesh and Hafeel produced brilliant displays in attack and defence. With C K Ratheesh setting up superb smashes, Kerala slowly but surely took control. At 2-2, Kerala made little mistakes and as against Uttarakhand in the quarterfinals, won the decider 15-13 to the delight of their supporters.
After some initial resistance, Railways gained control of their last four encounter, and were never in danger of falling back. P Prabhakaran, Sandeep Kumar and Karan Choudhary played a compact game and rarely made mistakes.
Their receiving was fantastic as they never allowed the TN attack to secure points. With Prabhakaran laying it up well at on either flanks and even selling TN a few dummies, Railways surged ahead and won the first set 25-23.
The second was the same story and though TN’s Vaishnav and Riyazuddin did well to put up effective blocks, Railways found a way through the defence and won the third rather comfortably at 25-18 to romp home.
Results (all semifinals): Men: Kerala bt Punjab 3-2 (19-25, 23-25, 28-26, 25-18, 15-13); Indian Railways bt Tamil Nadu 3-0 (25-23, -25-23, 25-18).
Women: Railways bt West Bengal 3-0 (25-9, 25-20, 25-13); Kerala bt Tamil Nadu 3-0 (25-09, 25-17, 25-22).