Sports Etcetera!!!

What else one can say to the young Indian lads who lost to Brazil yesterday (08/08/2009) in the Junior World Championship being held at Pune. The passion and fighting spirit shown by the Indian juniors were nothing less than of the highest quality. But the heroics of the Brazilians weren't no lesser and act. In fact it is their composure which won them the final set with a comfortable margin of 15-9.

The earlier rounds were a different story. The inexperienced Indian team showed extra ordinary character to reach so far in the tournament and to stretch the brilliant Brazilians to their maximum. With one set down, the Indians were looking out of place at the beginning of the second set. With Brazilian spikers led by the extraordinary Mauricio Silva finding gaps in the Indian defense consistently, the doom was descending fast up on the hosts. But the Indian spikers turned to the best form of defense to protect themselves - AGGRESSION. Indian spiking duo of Gurinder Singh and Naveen Jacob revamped themselves and smashed ball after ball into the Brazilian court to lift India to a 2-2 situation. In fact, the smashes of Gurinder Singh have been the best ones on display in the tournament. But Indians weren't showing the same talents in their blocking. The leaky defense and an unusually high number of unforced errors were more than enough for a dangerous Brazilian team turn the tables in their favor.

The scores: 25-19, 17-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-9 in favor of Brazil