However, the coach denied that Basnet had reached the finals, as reported by agencies earlier. The five-member squad won a bronze which went to Jitender Kumar in the middle weight (75kg) category. Sandhu also praised the experienced JItender for his fighting qualities. While Rao and Basnet lost in the quarter-finals, the other two, Durjan Shastri and Bhushan Saini failed to clear the first hurdle. ``I am really disappointed with Bhushan's performance. He is our best in the lightweight category, but was outclassed by the Thai boxer,'' Sandhu said.

The Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF) had sent a second string team for the event, with last year's gold medal winner Dingko Singh, Birju Shah and otherexperienced boxers staying back to train. The coach defended this decision saying that the idea was to keep the medal prospects away from limelight. ``Our rivals have been preparing videos of our bouts and thereby, preparing strategies well in advance to counter our boxers. So, we decided not to expose our main boxers. It remains to be seen how effective that will be at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.''

The IABF secretary Rajesh Bhandari also expressed satisfaction with the team's performance. ``These were youngsters, and their performance against some of the best in the world is indeed creditable. The boys now have the confidence that they can do much better,'' he said.

The coach also said that the dominance of left-handers in Bangkok has underlined the need for India to find more southpaws as sparring partners.``We have been facing this problem for several years now. Unless our boys train against southpaws, they will keep failing in international events.''

Indians at King's Cup

LIGHT-FLYWEIGHT: H Srinivas Rao -- Preliminary round: bt Jim Rooney (Ireland) 19-6 on points; Quarter-finals: lost to Somrat Kamsing (Thailand) 8-9 on points.

FLY WEIGHT: Rajesh Basnet -- Preliminary round: bt Luchi Wen (Chinese Taipei) 14-2 on points; Quarter-finals: lost to Pramuansak Phosuwan (Thailand) 1-9.

LIGHT WEIGHT: Bhushan Saini -- Preliminary round: lost to Pichal Sayota (Thailand) 4-13 on points.

LIGHT-MIDDLE WEIGHT: Durjan Shastri -- Preliminary round: lost to Fukuda Takayuki (Japan), lost by RSC (OC) in the fourth round.

MIDDLE WEIGHT: Jitender Kumar -- Preliminary round: bt Bancha Malison (Thailand) 7-4 on points; Quarter-finals: bt Astrakhantsev Alexei (Russia) 7-6 on points; Semi-finals: lost to Yarbekov Dilshod (Uzbekistan) 10-14 on points.