Poor outing for India in basketball, handball at Asiad

Indian women’s basketball team opened its campaign at the 18th Asian Games on a disappointing note, losing 61-79 to Kazakhstan in the Group A preliminary round.

India's Prasannan Geetha Anjana (right) in action during women's basketball preliminary game against Kazakhstan.

Indian women’s basketball team opened its campaign at the 18th Asian Games on a disappointing note, losing 61-79 to Kazakhstan in the Group A preliminary round here on Friday.

The Indian women were outclassed in the first two quarters (13-18, 12-19) before they tried to make a comeback with a 21-22 score in the third quarter but Kazakhstan outwitted its rivals 20-15 in the fourth quarter.

Now it will face Chinese Taipei on Sunday, before taking on Unified Korea and hosts Indonesia on August 20 and August 23 respectively in the basketball 5x5 preliminary group A matches.

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In handball, the Indian men’s team also had a dismal outing on Friday as it went down 29-40 to Iraq in a Group D preliminary match here.

Deepak Ahlawat (8) and Karamjeet Singh (6) were the top-scorer for India but it was not enough as they were outclassed 13-18 in the first period and then 16-22 in the second period here.

The Indian men’s team had lost to Chinese Taipei (28-38) on August 13, before losing 25-32 to Bahrain on August 15.