Day 2 at Marrakesh was definitely a disappointing one for India.
The Indian ladies, who had filled us with so much hope on day 1, were given a dose of reality today. The Indian mixed team continued to struggle, notching up their first win only in the last session. While the Indian seniors did win their first two matches, their efforts to qualify suffered a set back in the final session.
The Open team, however, played strong, consistent bridge to remain just outside the qualifying range.
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In their first match, the Indian team took the lead on board one itself. However, the lead was short lived as the match was squared by the 5th board. The match went on being more or less balanced till the 13th board of the set when Raju Tolani (North), holding QJTxx of the trump suit, opted not to double a 4 Spade contract by opponents. In the other room, East chose not to open and South opened 1 Club. Now, when East West reached 4S, North had no hesitation in doubling giving New Zealand 12 imps.
The match looked lost until the last board which was as below.
In the Closed Room, Ajay Khare overcalled 3 Diamonds over East's 1 Club opening. As luck would have it, he was not doubled and, even though the opponents defended perfectly to restrict declarer to just 4 tricks, they could collect only 250. At the other table Sandeep Thakral opened 1NT and East West duly reached 3 No Trumps and made 11 tricks for 660 and 9 imps. This lucky break enabled India to square the match.
In their next engagement with China, the match went on pretty sedately for the first 13 boards with the Indians having laboriously collected a lead of 15 imps.
In the next board (shown below), the Chinese were allowed to make games in both rooms to pull back 13 of them
In hindsight, of course, the par score is 6C by East West. However, the Chinese North South were allowed to play and make 4 Spades in the open room while their counterparts played in 5 Clubs in the closed room.
Raju Tolani and Ajay Khare pulled back those 13 imps with an excellently bid slam on Board 15. However, on Board 16, they opted not to extend sacrificing over 5 Hearts. Since the Indian East West had not even bid 5 Hearts, this cost India 11 imps for an eventual score of +4
In their last match against Chile, India carved out a facile 16 imp win over Chile to end the day with a score of 69.63 VPs, standing in 9th place.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
We were following the Indian team with great expectations after their performance on day 1. However, the expectations were truly dashed yesterday when India lost all their three matches.
While the US whitewashed India with a difference of 64 imps, the Indian teams had their moments in both their other matches.
In the match against France they were leading after 9 boards after which they somehow couldn't sustain their performance.
Likewise, in the match against Egypt, they were leading by 22 imps after 9 boards only to lose by 2 imps (both of which were lost in the last two boards).
While we are aware of the pitfalls of evaluating a 16 board match in the fashion shown above, one cannot hide the disappointment one feels at the final outcome.
At the end of the day, they had fallen to 18th position from 7th overnight. We hope they do much better today.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
In their first match yesterday, the Indian team eked out a narrow win of 5 imps against Canada.
In their second match, they won by 7 imps against a weak Guadelope team.
In their last match, their aggression seems to have cost them dear as two failed slams cost them 24 imps and an eventual 14 imp loss to South Africa.
They finished the day in 15th position. They will have to do some real hard work if they wish to qualify!
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
The mixed team's performance continued to disappoint on day 2 with a markedly lacklustre performance.
In their first match, they lost narrowly (46-52) to Romania. While the score appears very narrow, 25 of India's 46 imps were due to the Romanians over reaching on two boards, one to a grand slam and another to a little slam.
The next match was another gut wrenching loss to New Zealand (24-33). The loss actually happened on the last board which was as below.
In the Open Room, the Indian pair opted to penalize the 4S sacrifice. In the Closed Room the Indian pair opted let the opponents to play in 5H. Even had they sacrificed in 5S, we would have still lost, but the margin would have been like 3 imps.
Let me hasten to add that there is no criticism of either pair implied in the remarks above. Just a mere observation.
In the final match against Singapore, India finally showed a strong performance to win by 29 imps (55-26) and improve their position to 17th at the end of the day.
Nevertheless, it goes without saying that a lot of hard work needs to be done if they want to qualify.
India's scorecard, as well as their upcoming matches can be seen by clicking here.
Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.