Bagan try out Bulgarian striker

Bulgarian Valery Stanikov is the latest striker Mohun Bagan are trying out as replacement for Jose Ramirez Barreto. The 26-year-old, who plays for a second division club in Bulgaria, reached the city on Thursday morning and was at the club ground a few hours later to show off his skills.

Coach Aloke Mukherjee said after the afternoon session it was too early to judge him and added: “From what I saw, I have got a feeling that he knows his game.” Aloke’s assistant Satyajit Chatterjee, however, felt Stanikov is a mature striker.

A decision on whether the Bulgarian will be registered for the second phase of the NFL will be taken shortly.

Inter-unit tennis

IOC, ONGC ‘A’ and IBP, the top three seeds, booked semi-final berths in the men’s team event of the 23rd PSPB inter-unit tennis championships at the BTA Complex on Thursday.

Defending champions and fourth seed GAIL, however, were shown the door by the unseeded OIL ‘A’.

RESULTS (Quarter finals)

IOC bt ONGC ‘B’ 2-0 (P. Srinath bt D.J. Dutta 6-1, 6-0; Vasudev Reddy bt Sunil Mathew 6-1, 6-0); ONGC ‘A’ bt NRL ‘A’ 2-0 (Vijay Kannan bt S. Kalita 6-0, 6-0; Prem Prakash bt A. Gogoi 6-0, 6-0); IBP bt OIL ‘B’ 2-0 (Saurav Panja bt R.L. Rajkhowa 6-1, 6-0; Enrico Piperno bt Pradeep Rajbanshi 6-0, 6-1); OIL ‘A’ bt GAIL 2-1 (Anshuman Dutta beat Pradeep Mohila 6-0, 6-0; Chandrasekhar Mohanty lost 1-6, 3-6 to Vishal Uppal; A. Dutta & C.S. Mohanty bt V. Uppal & D.P. Sen 6-3, 6-0).

Basketball

RPG beat TCS 57-29 in the Mercantile mixed basketball championship at the Rangers Club on Thursday. In another match, Greenways overcame Tata Tea 34-26.

Postal football

Bengal routed UP 7-0 while Delhi pumped in six without reply against Assam on the opening day of the 17th all-India postal football meet at SAI complex on Thursday. Tamil Nadu edged out Orissa 1-0 while Kerala got a walkover from Haryana.

Meet for deaf

A total of 350 deaf footballers from all over the country will participate in the 13th national championship to be held from Monday through Thursday. Competitions will be held in the junior as well as senior categories, with matches being scheduled at the Salt Lake Stadium and Bidhannagar Municipality sports complex ground.

TODAY IN SPORT

BASKETBALL: Mercantile mixed meet at Rangers from 7 pm.

FOOTBALL: All-India postal meet: Matches at SAI complex from 9 am.

GOLF: Eveready all-India amateur meet: Pre-quarter final round from 7 am, quarter final from 11.40 am at RCGC.

TENNIS: PSPB inter-unit meet: Team championship semi-finals at BTA Complex from 9 am.