Maharashtra girls hope to upset PSPB

PATNA: Maharashtra A's teenaged duo of Pooja Sahastrabuddhe and Divya Deshpande would be hoping to cause a few upsets in their team championship semifinal tie against defending champions PSPB on Thursday.
Top seeds PSPB, who haven't dropped a match going into the last four stage, would be eyeing another clean sweep.
Maharashtra A's coach Nilesh Pandhirkar said his team stands a mere 30% chance against PSPB, but he was happy to have come this far."We have very little chance of winning, but since Pooja and Divya have beaten K Shamini and Neha (Aggarwal) recently, I'm hoping they can cause an upset or two on Thursday," Nilesh, himself a former player, told TOI on the sidelines of the Senior National & Inter State Championships.
If the first semifinal appears heavily loaded in PSPB's favour, the other last four duel between West Bengal (WBTTA) and last year's runners-up North Bengal (NBTTA) should be a closely contested one. While WBTTA will be banking on the experienced Mouma Das and Commonwealth Youth Games bronze medallist Soumi Mondal to come good, NBTTA on the other hand have rising paddler Ankita Das in their ranks, who's high on confidence having upset a few top players recently.
The script appears the same in the men's event with PSPB looking the clear favourite to advance from the top half. The defending champions square up against last year's semifinalists Gujarat who beat West Bengal 3-1 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. The competition is more even in the bottom half where North Bengal face last year's runners-up RSPB. If Railways are rich in experience with the likes of Sourav Chakraborty and Anirban Nandi in their side, the Bengal team boasts of young guns Soumyajit Ghosh and Raj Mondal.
Semifinal line-up: Men: PSPB vs Gujarat, North Bengal vs RSPB. Women: PSPB vs Maharashtra A, West Bengal vs North Bengal.