New Delhi, July 15 (IANS) India defeated Sri Lanka 89-35 in the final of the Middle Asia Zone qualifying event at the Thyagaraj Stadium here Friday to secure their berth for the Asian Basketball Championship in September.
The convincing win shows promise for Indian basketball under their new head coach Kenny Natt, who took charge only a month ago.
The home team continued with their defence-centric game in the tournament and got the better of the Lankans for the second time in a row. India had beaten them in their only group match Wednesday.
Five players scored in double digits for India including Hareesh Koroth, who was the top-scorer with 12 points. Praneeth earned almost half of the points for Sri Lanka scoring 17.
With the defence-oriented game, India shared the ball extremely well to dominate their opponents. The hosts only allowed Sri Lanka to score one field goal in the first quarter as they raced off to a 25-2 lead. A telling point of the match was India scoring 60 percent of their points through the field.
An Indian win seemed inevitable when they led the match 51-11 at half time.
India, however, have a much tougher task ahead in the 16-nation Asian Championship in Wuhan, China Sep 15-25. The 50th ranked team in the world is drawn with higher-ranked Lebanon, Korea, and Malaysia in their group.
Earlier in the day, Nepal won a close match Bangladesh 73-62 to finish third in the competition.
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