Title - SWR men bag the team title

South Western Railway (SWR) men clinched the team title of the ongoing diamond jubilee edition of the All India Inter Railway Badminton Championships at the Railway Recreation Club (RRC) multi-purpose indoor stadium, Secunderabad.The only serious challenge posed to the winner came from host South Central Railway (SCR) and in the fitness of things, the two teams clashed in the final. Incidentally, the same squads had met last year too and SWR had prevailed with an identical 3-2 verdict. On their way to the final, SWR had it easy in what looked like warming up outings and defeated SECR in the pre quarter finals 3 – 1, ER in the quarter finals 3 – 1 and WR in the semi-finals 3 – 0. SCR had also had equally easy matches and defeated NCR in the pre quarter finals 3 – 0, NER in the quarter finals 3 – 1 and NR in the semi-finals 3 – 0.Favourite Mohit Kamat avenged the loss he suffered at the hands of Vinay Kumar Reddy of SCR last year, defeating him 2 – 1 this time. Mohit stamped his class and totally dominated the proceedings.Ajay Kumar of SCR restored parity by having the measure of debutant left hander, Nagendra of SWR 2 – 0. The first doubles went the full distance with SCR’s James and Dinesh turning the tables on Mohit and Anil, recovering from 12 – 16 in the third game and registering a crucial 2 – 1 win.

This win probably raised the hopes of host SCR, which proved short lived in the end. S. Sanjeeth of SWR, a member of the IR team, proved superior to much higher ranked Kiran Kumar of SCR by winning in straight games, 2 – 0. Sanjeeth’s heroics didn’t end with his singles win as he combined with Jagadheesh Yadav and downed Vinay and Kiran 2 – 1. “Sanjeeth and Jagadheesh played world class badminton,” raved Kamat.

On the distaff side, Northern got the better of Central Railway 2-0.

A total of 160 men, women badminton players and officials were in the fray, representing 18 men’s and six women’s teams from different zones and production units of Indian Railways. This was the fourth time that South Central Railway Sports Association (SCRSA), hosted the event.

A number of leading players of the Indian badminton circuit including top seed Kamat, representing SWR holding Badminton Association of India (BAI) rank of 4, P. Vinay Kumar Reddy (SCR, 7), K. Ajay Kumar (SCR, 18), Deepak Khatri (NR, 19), B. Kiran Kumar (SCR, 20) slugged it out in the team and open individual events too.

Uppuluri Krishna Murty

The only serious challenge came from host SCR