Indian men’s doubles duo of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran bagged the silver medal in the men’s doubles final at the ongoing Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham on Saturday.
The Indian duo clinched the silver medal after losing to Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford of England 11-8, 8-11, 3-11, 11-7, 4-11.
The ace paddlers Kamal and Sathiyan were at their best during the match as they crushed their opponent 11-8 in the first games and did not really allow English players to be in a position of advantage.
The second game of the match saw, England paddlers giving a tough fight and making a stunning comeback against the Indians to claim the second and third games by 11-8, 11 – 3.
Kamal and Sathiyan bounced back swiftly to play some aggressive shots as the Indians claimed the game by the margin of 11-7 to equal the lead by 2-2 and forced the decider.
In the decider both the teams tried their hardest to clinch the lead. The decider was hard fought as both teams were not ready to give up any points but the England paddler played with swift moves as they clinch the match as well as the gold medal by 3-2.
Earlier, Indian paddler Sreeja Akula suffered a defeat in the closely-fought encounter against Australia’s Yangzi Liu in the women’s singles bronze medal match at the Commonwealth Games 2022.
Sreeja won the first game after which the Aussie took charge and never allowed the Indian paddler the lead in the match.
The 4-3 defeat means she ended the women’s singles category ranked fourth in this edition of the CWG.
