Defending champions Sri Lanka made short work of India in their 1st game of the Asian Netball Championships, beating their South Asian counterparts 102-14 at the OCBC Arena in Singapore.
Sri Lanka came into the game as overwhelming favourites, having won Asian 5 titles, including the most recent one in 2018, while India’s top finish has been 4th (twice) in 10 appearances at the Championships.
Sri Lanka started off with a bang, as expected, dominating the scoring in the 1st quarter, with their age-old strategy of getting the ball to Tharjini ‘Genie’ Sivalingam coming off in full force. They took the 1st quarter 34-02 and then completely dominated the 2nd quarter as well to go into the half-time break leading by 58-03.
With this being the tournament opener, Sri Lanka started things off with their best 7, but experimented quite a bit in the 3rd and 4th quarters, to get their bench some game time. It made no difference to the result however, especially with Sivalingam playing right throughout. 21-07, 23-04 score lines in the last two quarters saw them run away with the win.
Sri Lanka overall scored 102 goals off 108 attempts, while India made 14 of their 28. Sivalingam made 72 goals at a 96% success rate and finished as the top scorer in the game.
Day 1 Results
- Group A – Sri Lanka beat India 102 – 14
- Group B – Singapore beat Japan 103 – 03
- Group C – Malaysia beat Brunei 78 -22
Sri Lanka will have a day off tomorrow and face 8th ranked Philippines in their 1nd first round game on Monday.
