DHAKA: Nepal tasted their first defeat against tournament favourites India in the women's football here at the Kamalapur Football Stadium today.

Playing against a much better side for the first time after winning their previous two matches against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the weakness of the women footballers was exposed in their 5-0 loss.

The belief that Nepali defense as well as their striking ability got good ground after defeating the hosts 1-0 and 8-0 thrashing of the Sri Lankans ended today. Especially after the Sri Lankan drubbing, the Nepali camp had started believing in themselves and might have been plotting for an upset today.

Nepal had not even settled when Tababi Devi Thongram put India ahead barely 30 seconds into the game. An own goal from Laxmi Kumari Poudel in the 30th and Sasmita Malika’s strike in the 37th minutes made it 3-0 going into the break. After the restart, Tababi Devi added her second in the 55th minute before Laishram Naobi completed the rout scoring the fifth goal six minutes from time. No threatening moves were made from the Nepali side.

Shooting

DHAKA: Nepali shooters finished bottom of the table in the Women's 10m Air Pistol Team Event here on Thursday. Trishna Thapa, Sima Tuladhar and Sabita Basnet accumulated 1,042 points to end fifth in a five-team championship.

Trishna scored 353, Sima 347 and Sabita 342 points. None of the Nepali shooters qualified for the Individual Event after they failed to finish in top eight. Only the best eight shooters from the Team Event advance for the Individual Event. India won gold medal with the score of 1,126 points, Pakistan claimed silver (1,108) and hosts Bangladesh (1,078) got bronze medal. India clean swept the Individual Event winning gold, silver and bronze medals. Bajrauddin Ansari, Sudhan Khadka and Anil Thakuri will represent Nepal in the Men's 10m Air Pistol Team Event on Friday.

Golf

DHAKA: Nepal ended up fifth in the golf team event after the second and final round here at the Kurmitola Golf Club on Thursday. Rupak Acharya carded the second straight three-over 75 while Tashi Ghale scored 14-over 86, Tashi Tsering had 15-over 87 and Bishnu Prasad Sharma returned with the card of 17-over 89. The Nepali team submitted the card of 248 on Thursday to that of the first round total of 240. The Nepali team finished 66-stroke behind gold medallist Bangladeshi team (10-under 422). Only three best scores of a team were counted for team total. India (three-over 435) and Sri Lanka (15-over 447) got silver and bronze medals. In the Individual section, Rupak fell further behind from first round eighth to 11th with six-over 150.

Wushu

DHAKA: Purushottam Rijal was drawn directly in the semi-finals of the men's 70kg category in wushu on Thursday. He received the first round bye during the draw held in Sylhet, about 300km from Bangabandhu National Stadium. Apart from the draw and the tie-sheets of the event, the first day also saw players undergo weighing formalities.

Squash

DHAKA: Nepal continued their losing streak in squash here at the Dhaka Club Squash Court on Thursday. The team of Suresh Kumar Gurung, Sudip Bahadur Singh and Hira Bahadur Thapa lost the second successive Men's Team Event against Pakistan 3-0. Suresh Kumar, who replaced Tak Kumar Tilija for the match, suffered a humiliating 1-11, 0-11, 0-11 defeat to Farhan Jaman. Tilija was the member of the team that lost against Sri Lanka in the first match on Tuesday. In other matches, Sudip Bahadur went down 5-11, 5-11, 2-11 to Mansur Jaman while Hira Bahadur lost to Farhan Manshur 5-11, 5-11, 12-10, 3-11. Nepal will now play their next league match against India on Friday.