IndianOil meet ONGC in team final
New Delhi   18-Mar-2008
Arvind Bhat shook his head in disgust, mumbled to himself and cursed his awry luck. Overcome with a sense of déjà vu, Bhat wondered, yet again, how he had managed to be in a situation not unfamiliar to him. The Bharat Petroleum employee had just lost to Indian Oil's P Kashyap 15-21, 21-11, 19-21 in the teams' event of the 29th Inter-petroleum badminton tournament in the Capital on Monday, and that too after taking a 15-7 lead in the third set. BPCL consequently lost 0-3 to IndianOil in the semi-finals on Monday at the Siri Fort sports complex. In another semi-final, a star-studded ONGC overcame GAIL with a similar 3-0 margin. It was the fifth time in seven matches that Bhat had lost after taking a comfortable lead and had only himself to blame. "In this format, and at a stage like that (15-7) one should in no way find himself on the losing side but I was feeling good, and was in fine rhythm during the match though," he said. "But, every time I think I'm in a winning position something goes wrong mentally. I do not know what it is but it has been so since the beginning of the year," rued India No.4 Bhat, who played Gopichand-coached Kashyap for the first time ever in the semi-final. After losing the first set 15-21, in spite of a 9-6 lead, Bhat regrouped for a much improved performance in the second set and raced to a 8-2 lead with deft clearings, drives and smashes. Kashyap's fluid court movements and jump smashes were only met with Bhat s vigilant retriving. In the third set, however, Bhat's heroics in the second set were undone with Kashyap benefiting from negative points that came in heaps from Bhat Meanwhile, BPCL’s Sagar Chopra sustained an ankle injury when he slipped horrifically during his doubles match. Chopra, jetlagged and fatigued, had only just returned from a competition in Portugal. In the women's team event, BPCL, who beat GAIL 2-0, will meet IndianOil in the final. IndianOil beat EIL 2-0. BPCL's Saina Nehwal had an easy outing against GAIL's Maya Dasrath in their semi-final match, winning 21-0, 21-2. Doubles specialist Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurien too were unchallenged in their 21-3, 21-4 triumph over GAIL's Neelima and Maya Dasrath. <b>Results:</b> Men's semi-finals: ONGC bt GAIL 3-0 (Chetan Anand bt Ravinder Singh Gill 21-10,21-11;Thomas Kurefn bt R Parihar 21-3,21-11; Rupesh/Diju bt Ravinder Singh Gill/ BK Gupta 21 -8,21 -10); IndianOil bt BPCL3-0 (Ajay Jayram bt Ajit Wijeti lak 21-72,21-19, P Kashyap bt Arvind Bhat 21-15,11-21,21-19; P Gopkhand/JBSVidyadhar bt Sagar Chopra/ RP Aditya 21-16,4-4 (conceded). Women's semi-finals: BPCL bt GAIL 2-0 (Saina Nehwal bt Maya Dasrath 21-0,21-2, Jwala Gutta/Shruti Kurien bt Neelima/Maya Dasrath 21 -3,21 -4}; IndianOil bt EIL 2-0 (BR Meenakshi bt Sampada 21-4,21-5; BR Meenakshi/ Apama Balan bt Vineeta/Rrcha 21-2,21-1).