The beauty of sport lies not so much in winning or losing but in the manner that it won or lost. And if that be so, the game of bridge was certainly the winner last night at Veldhoven, Netherlands where the Indian Under 31 youth team overcame a spirited fight from their worthy Bulgarian opponents, managing to pip them by the faintest of margins for a berth into the semi-finals. The final scoreline of 128-126 though, fails to express the pitched battle where the lead was frequently exchanged at every turn of the 4 session Quarterfinal match.
Four Indian teams represented India at the 18th World Youth Team Championships in the U-16, U21, U-26 and U-31 categories. After the league phase played between 31st July to 04th Aug, 8 of the top teams in each category moved to the knockout phase. The U-31 team has a commanding performance all throughout and finished 2nd among 20 teams behind group leaders China. For the QF match that was played on 5th Aug, the Indian team selected Bulgaria as their opponent. In a four-session match of 14 boards each, the Indian team started rather shakily and quickly slipped behind, ending the session 14-34, before recovering strongly to win the second session 52-20 for a 12 IMP overall lead.
The Bulgarian youth who played a 4 member team, started the 3rd session strongly and overcame the deficit on the second board and soon led by 23 IMPs by board number 6. A late recovery by the Indian team saw then finish the session 35-41 for a 6 IMP overall lead going into session 4. By the halfway stage of the 4th session, the Bulgarians had not only erased the deficit but built up a commanding 20 IMP lead. Some inspired bidding and play by the Indian pairs in both rooms saw the team claw its way back and finally end the session 27-31 for a hard fought 2 IMP win. India U-31 next meet France in the SF on 06th Aug with China and Belgium squaring off in the other SF.
The Indian U-31 team is being led by their coach and non-playing Captain Shib Nath Deysarkar, who was a gold medal winner at the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018, and is represented by 3 pairs namely, Sayantan Kushari- Sagnik Roy, Pritam das – Souvik Kar, and Swarnashish Chatterjee – Wrik Chakraborty.
