India demolish SA to move into Commonwealth Volley final

Kolkata, Aug 3 (UNI) India romped past South Africa in straight sets to seal date into the final of the second Commonwealth volleyball championship here today.

The hosts, buoyed by the thrilling win over formidable Australia yesterday, took 69 minutes to prevail over South Africa 25-20, 29-27 and 25-18, to the wild cheers of the 5,500 crowd at the Netaji Indoor stadium.

The Indians came back from the brink in the exciting second set as the South Africans played spiritedly.

However, they choked on set point and conceded the set to the hosts. After this there was no looking back. The third set got over in 21 minutes.

The South African team's tactical move of slowing down the game to make the Indians play long rallies did not work as the visitors made lot of unforced errors.

Earlier, the first set lasted 21 minutes as India led consistently, with the South Africans never really managing to bridge the early gap.

The third set saw the two rivals going neck and neck till 9-9, before the Indians went ahead to settle the issue and romp into the title round.

For India, once again Sanjay Kumar finished as the top scorer as he let loose a barrage of smashes to garner 17 points. For South Africa, Chiya Freedom collected 15 points.

Indian coach G E Sridharan later said, ''It is always a bit of a problem to adjust to a slow game after playing a very fast game a day before. But our boys did well.'' South African coach Elwassimy Hamid, who had coached India in 1998, admitted that the Indians deserved to win. ''They are more experienced, having played together for long. I think if they continue like this, then the day is not far off when they can run the leading countries of the world close. Only thing is they need to give more exposure to their bench players,'' said Elwassimy, who had coached India at the Bankok Asian Games.

In other matches, Bangladesh beat New Zealand 21-25, 32-30, 25-22, 25-21 to take the seventh position.

Captain Ali Mamun Sheikh was the highest scorer for the winners with 26 points. In another match, Canada outclassed Srilanka 27-25, 25-12, 25-18 to finish fifth in the competition.

Gavin Schmitt scored the highest with 19 points for the winners.

Srilanka and New Zealand thus finish sixth and eighth respectively.

UNI