Biting into gold

Biting into gold
Ghosal, Harinder triumph to hand India its first ever squash gold with a 2-0 win over Malaysia.

Sourav Ghosal re-lived the pain of the lost gold medal in the team championship for a moment when he wasted a match ball in the fourth game against Ong Beng Hee and went on to lose the game.

The country’s top squash player had suffered a similar situation in the individual final against Kuwait’s Abdullah Almezayen and went on to lose the final from there on. But yesterday, the world number 16 was spurred on by his teammates as he managed to handle his nerves and the tricky opponent to not just win the match but also hand India its first ever Asian Games gold in squash.

The gold medal also capped off a brilliant campaign for the squash players which saw India finished with agold, two silver and a bronze.

From underdog to top dog

India went into the final as an underdog, having lost to Malaysia 2-1 in the group stage.

Though Ghosal had not played in that encounter, it was important for India to come up with a special performance to get the better of a team that had two former Asian Games champions in their line-up.

It was the plucky Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu who sprung the first surprise when he did not allow 2010 Asian Games champion Mohammad Azlan Iskandar 11-8 11-6 8-11 11-4 to give India a 1-0 lead.

All then depended on Ghosal, who had beaten Beng Hee in straight games in the individual semifinals.

However, the Indian needed to settle his nerves and that gave the Malaysian a head-start in the opening game and put pressure on Ghosal.

Ghosal to the rescue

To his credit, Ghosal increased the speed of the match from the second game and brought India close to the gold medal when he earned his first match ball at 12-11 in the fourth game, only to fritter it away with an unforced error.“At that time, all the thoughts of that individual final came flooding in my mind,” admitted Ghosal after the match.

“Thankfully, I re-group during the break and I am happy that we could win the gold. It is a huge day for Indian squash and I hope we can build on it from here on.”

Earlier, the women’s team finished with a silver after they went down 2-0 against Malaysia. Both Anaka Alankamony and Dipika Pallikal were no match to their opponents who romped home to victory and retain the gold medal. It was a step up for the women, who finished with a bronze in Guangzhou in 2010.