Lucknow: India’s Youth Under-18 team secured a place in the finals of the IHF Trophy Men’s Youth and Junior Handball (Continental Phase – Asia) by giving its best performance till date.
In the second semi-final of the Youth category held at the newly built Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee Multipurpose Hall of KD Singh Babu Stadium, India defeated Kazakhstan 31-27 to enter the title race. India will now face Uzbekistan in the final, which defeated Bangladesh in another semi-final.
In today’s exciting semi-final, the Indian team displayed attacking game right from the beginning and kept the pressure on the opponent team. However, the players of Kazakhstan also gave them a tough fight with their agility.
India’s goalkeeper Naveen played a big role in the victory, who continued his form of the previous matches and foiled many attacks of the opponent players, he received the Player of the Match award for showing a brilliant game.
As the match progressed, Indian players ran with the ball and broke into Kazakhstan’s defense many times but the opponents also scored goals through counter attacks.
The host players were ahead 17-9 till the interval.
Ravi scored the highest number of 13 goals in India’s victory. Supporting him, Rohit succeeded in scoring 7 goals. Anshu scored 4, Manish Yadav and Suyash Awasthi scored 3-3 and Praveen Gill scored one goal.
From Kazakhstan’s side, Igor Sudarikov scored the highest number of 10 goals and Vadim Kasin scored 7 goals.
Today’s guest in the championship, Atul Gupta (Retired IAS, Former Chief Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh) honored the players by giving them the Player of the Match award. He was welcomed by Handball Association India’s Executive Director Dr. Anandeshwar Pandey.
Also read: India in youth category semis in IHF Trophy
On this occasion, Handball Association India treasurer Vinay Kumar Singh, Uttar Pradesh Handball Association organising secretary Amit Pandey, Lucknow Handball Association secretary Dr. Sumant Pandey were also present.
In the semi-finals played earlier, Uzbekistan made it to the finals of both youth and junior categories. In the first semi-final of Youth Under-18, Uzbekistan defeated Bangladesh 42-22. Uzbekistan was ahead 18-13 till the half-time in the match.
Asymbetov Jasurbek scored the highest number of 10 goals from the team. Turgunov Kuvonchbek scored 8 and Safarov scored 6 goals.
After this, in the first semi-final of Junior Under-20 also, Uzbekistan defeated Bangladesh 34-20. Uzbekistan was ahead 18-9 till the half-time.
For Uzbekistan, Zokirov Umidjon scored 5 goals while Mamadazimov, Hasan Shoimov, Garat Baratov and Rahimov scored 4 goals each.
