India assured themselves of a place in the Asian basketball championship, to be held in China in September, as the hosts recorded their third straight win, brushing aside a spirited Sri Lanka 101-54 in a Middle-Asia zone qualifying round match in Delhi on Friday.
India joined Uzbekistan at the top of the table with six points. Te two teams will square up in the concluding match of the qualifier at the Talkatora stadium tomorrow.
Coming into the match with one win and a defeat, Sri Lanka pushed the Indians hard in the first quarter. After veteran Parminder Singh opened India's account, the hosts quickly jumped to a 8-2 lead but Sri Lanka fought back to narrow the gap to just one basket at 6-8 with Chanath Danawansa and Heshan Premarchandra netting one apeice.
Parminder again put India up and the team took a 25-13 lead at the end of the first quarter. But overall, Parminder disappointed,converting only 13 points in 20 attempts. Seven of his points came from free throws of which he missed six.
India fielded the flamboyant combination of Robinson and S Kadam in the second quarter and the two quickly forced the islanders on the backfoot with their speed and agility.
Robinson emerged as the top-scorer with 17 points with Sridhar netting 14. Trideep Rai scored 13 points.
The diminutive Kadam reached to the other end in a flash as Robinson and Murli Krishna excelled in collecting the rebounds.
Sridhar played his best in the second quarter as India went to the half-time leading 40-24.
Skipper Gagnesh Kumar made his first appearance as India began the third quarter with Snehpal Singh, Desraj, Trideep and Riyazzudin.
Forty seconds into the quarter,Trideep restarted India's scoring with a fine three-pointer. Though India were netting baskets regularly to move to 55,the Sri Lankans were not ready to throw in the towel as they moved from their half-time score of 24 to 33.
Sri Lanka pressed further and P Pushpakumara went in swiftly only to be fouled by Snehpal. He converted both the free throws cleanly to pull the score to 35-59.
Meanwhile, Parminder was trying his best to regain his touch before tomorrow's prestige match against Uzbekistan. But the Lankans were succesful in thwarting his moves conceding free throws.
Robinson made it 61 before Riyazzudin scored a two-pointer and, after India's time out with 2 minutes and 53 seconds left, added another three to take India to 66-35.
By the end of the third quarter India were leading 73-25 but, with only 10 minutes left the century mark was looking a bit difficult for the third successive time.
But with the lanky Robinson excelling once again on both the boards, the Indian score moved to 79-46 and 83-50 five minutes before the end.
At this point India sent in Kadam, Murli Krishna, Parminder, Gopinath and Trideep and together they took the score past the magical mark of 100 just before close.
India coach C H Rameh billed tomorrow's game against Uzbekistan as a prestige match.
"We want to win the championship. It is our home turf and we want to beat them," he said.
In the day's second and last match, Bangladesh recorded their first win beating Nepal 66-60. At halftime Bangladesh were leading 36-28.
Tomorrow's schedule: Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh, India vs Uzbekistan.
