The Mumbai District teams claimed fantastic grand double crowns, winning the Men’s and Women’s Team Championship finals in the LIC and Indian Oil sponsored 54th Maharashtra State and Inter-District Carrom Championship at the Suryavanshi Kshatriya Sabhgruha Hall, Veer Savarkar Marg, Dadar.
In the women’s final, the Mumbai players dominated against their rivals Ratnagiri District and scored a comfortable 3-0 win to emerge champions. The Mumbai men also proved too strong for their final opponents Pune District and registered an identical 3-0 win to run away with the top honours.
Mumbai’s consistent player, Kajal Kumari, provide them with the perfect start defeating Ratnagiri’s Maitreyee Gogate 25-2, 21-7 in the first match. Later, Aisha Mohd. Sajid gave Mumbai an unassailable 2-0 lead when she easily prevailed over Anushka Kadam 23-10, 24-8 in the second tie before the Mumbai doubles pairing of Shilpa Palniitkar and Anupama Kedar managed to overcome a stiff challenge from Apoorva Nachankar and Manali Lingayat before pulling off a 25-7, 0-22, 18-4 win in the third match to complete a clean sweep for the Mumbai side.
In the men’s final, Mohammed Ghufran won the opening singles tie beating Anil Mundhe 24-19, 20-11 to give Mumbai a 1-0 lead before Riyaz Akbarali won the second singles match against Rahim Khan 25-10, 25-5 to put Mumbai in a strong winning position 2-0. Later, Mumbai doubles team off Pankaj Pawar and Yogesh Dhongadee worked hard to overcome Abhijit Tripankar and Ganesh Taware 6-25, 25-0, 25-4 to complete a satisfying and successful triumph.
