Japan gave India a quarter, and thereafter conceded no inch. For an entire fourth of their final league match of the 23rd FIBA Asian Championship at Chennai’s Nehru stadium — and perhaps for the first time in the tournament — the hosts looked the part as they matched wits and shots with a Level 1 team in Asia. Sadly, the mirage lasted for 8:24 minutes, before Japan broke away at 16-16 and went on to win the game 108-58.

India's finest quarter of the tournament — before they drop down to playing Malaysia in the play-offs on Wednesday — started with a P Anitha 3-pointer, and the early surge also witnessed youngster Raspreet Sidhu and Prashanti Singh bulge the lead, before captain Geethu Anna Jose started her run of scores that yielded 30 points.

As always, she had accounted for half of India's eventual score. The steady points garnered from the outside shots seemed to have given Geethu the confidence as she drove in confidently and the hook shots attained a respectable conversion percentage.

Raspreet — a 20-year-old rookie — showed rare assurance and physicality on the court to defy the Japanese. The young girl from Punjab tallied 10 in the end, but made the early dents before Japan threw in their own sharp-shooters to run away with the game in the second quarter.

Ai Mitani's stupendous consistency — in which she sunk in 6 off the 7 three-pointers she attempted — pointed to the level of steady accuracy expected at this level, even as the Indians bottled up and their defence crumbled.

... contd.