Air-India led by internationals Gaurav Shetty and Dinesh Kumar found the going easy against a depleted Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) who had lost a couple of top players to the state team preparing for the Nationals. The airmen quickly gave a ‘lona’to jump to a 10-1 lead and when they wiped out their opponents, the second time around; it was curtains for BPCL with the score reading 28-11. Ashish Mhatre and Sachin Patil were the only ones who made some impact for BPCL which wasn’t good enough.

Western Rly kept themselves within striking distance of the policemen throughout the first half, trailing by a couple of points at the most. Once they equalized at 12-12, they drew away from their opponents giving a ‘lona’, which boosted them to 19-13 with five minutes left on the clock. Brothers Ravi and Hemant Radke proved to be the railmen’s mainstay. Dharamveer and Saurajya also impressed for Western. The police outfit, which had done well due to Mahesh Magdum and Prakash Ambre faded away.

Shekhar Patil and Anand Alawane, the raiding duo of the Mumbai Police team, did most of the damage against UBI. The bankmen played well with Nilesh Chindarkar netting three points in one raid at a crucial stage but the failure of Rohit Sheth counted in the end. Siddharth Gaikwad of UBI showed good potential with his raiding.

Central Railway have the tall Naresh Kumar to thank as he turned the tide in their favour with a raid that yielded five points. He got all the three Mahindra men out and that gave his team two additional points with a ‘lona’. From 5-4 at half time in their favour, Central did enough to ensure a win. They now run into Western while Air-India meet the city cops in the semi-finals.

Meanwhile on Monday, Western Railway and Mumbai Police booked their berths in the knockout stage of the Rajaramsheth Lad Gold Cup in the Shivneri Seva Mandal -URL foundation Kabaddi Festival. The railmen made light of the rain affected court to demolish Bank of India (BoI) 30-13 while the city-cops had to toil a bit more to overcome Mumbai Port Trust (MPT) 19-15. The railmen thus won two matches in Group ‘D’ whereas Mumbai Police won all their three matches in Group ‘C’. The cops finished on top while the railmen face Air-India in a match to decide the top two places.

In a first round match of the Mohan Naik Cup for ‘A’ division teams Dena Bank beat Aishwarya Electronics 21-19. Shree Bharati Muklund Masurkar shone for the bankmen in attack and defence while Mithun Bhoir and Prashant Kadam ended on the losing side despite a good display.

The railmen were cautious initially as the 10-7 lead they got at the break indicates. But once the raiding duo of Ravi Radke and Kunal Yadav got going it was curtains for BoI. Sainath excelled in defence for Western Rly. Mumbai Police were well served by Shekhar Patil and Anand Alawane who have been in the forefront in all their encounters. Their raiding has proved to be an asset for the policemen. Shekhar was at his best claiming three victories in one raid. Pankaj Mhatre and Sandeep Bhat tried their best to keep MPT afloat but to no avail.