In the first day, players of the North East states competed in Football, Badminton, Table Tennis, Basketball and Boxing events. Displaying its dominant nature, the state men’s football team defeated host Meghalaya and Sikkim in today’s matches of group A played at Pologround, Shillong and entered semi final. The first match was played against Meghalaya. After playing a keenly contested match, Manipur beat host Meghalaya 2-0 .
Both teams displayed a tough fight against one another. The two goals of Manipur were scored by Nganba and Gouro in the 23rd and 26th minutes of the match. On the other hand no players of Meghalaya could scored a single goal against Manipur and the match concluded with Manipur as winner. In the second match of group A, Manipur beat Sikkim 4-2 . Both teams played the match with full determination to win. However lack of better coordination among the players of Sikkim resulted to their loss of the match. Herojit scored the first goal of Manipur in the 15th minute of the match. Gouro scored two goals against Sikkim in the 23rd and 53rd minutes of the match. The fourth goal of Manipur was scored by I Nillakumar in the 61st minute of the match. On the other hand Sikkim managed to score only two goals against Manipur and the match concluded with Manipur as winner. Manipur will fight Arunachal Pradesh in the next match tomorrow. After winning two matches, Manipur is now in the top position wit six points in group A .
In table tennis also, state men’s team entered into the semi finals.
However in badminton and basketball Manipur suffer heavy loss.
In badminton, Manipur got defeated to Nagaland.
While in basketball, Manipur was defeated by Mizoram team.
Manipur will compete in Wushu, Karate and Boxing tomorrow.
There are high hopes of maximum medals in these events.
Source: Hueiyen News Service / e-pao.net
