The experienced team from West Bengal defeated defending Champions Maharashtra in Women Team
This was always on cards when two top team from India were in the final to fight for the Gold Medal.
While West Bengal showed great skills and game plan on their way to the final, Maharashtra team did just enough to justify the tag of defending champions.
The Final was given top billing as it was a battle between experience and youth. Eventually it was the experience of veteran paddlers Mouma Das and Sutirtha Mukherjee who prevailed in the crunch situation.
Ayhika gave a perfect start to Bengal team by winning her match in straight games against Swastika Ghosh 11-3,11-5,11-3
Next up was Sutirtha Mukherjee who was trying to give bengal a 2-0 lead but Reeth Rishya Tennison had other plans and she bought back Maharashtra in the tie
All the games in the match went down the wire but it was Reeth who played well at the pressure points and won the match 11-9,13-11,11-9
Reeth had made her debut for Indian senior team at the Commonwealth Games this year and she was oozing in confidence.
With the tie at 1-1 it was the turn of 38 year old Mouma Das who has an experience of more than two decades to give Bengal the lead. She had Diya Chitale in front of her and the youngster was no push over. Diya likewise Reeth had made the CWG debut and partnered Manika Batra in women Doubles.
Mouma against Diya – Crunch match
This match was expected to the tie decider as the momentum would swing to the team who wins this match. This proved to be a great match and went all the way down to wire. Mouma lost the first game 6-11 but came back to win the next one 16-14. Diya who had her chances in the second game was not in any mood to let the momentum swing and came back strongly to win the next game 12-10.
In the fourth game Mouma used all her experience and rallied to win the fourth game 14-12 to take it to the decider. In the final game Mouma didn’t give a chance to Diya as she closed the game 11-6 to win the match 6-11,16-14,10-12, 14-12, 11-6
Mouma gave the team an all important lead and now it was time for veteran Sutirtha to come back to the table and win the next rubber, this was a match between two players who had lost their first matches in straight games.
Sutirtha and Swastika gave yet another magnificent match for the spectators as this one also went down the wire with Sutirtha winning it in the end 11-4,11-13,11-9,10-12,11-6 to win the gold medal for the state.
This was the first gold medal on offer and West Bengal started the medal tally count with a gold
