India bag CWG’s 1st Silver in TT

Manika Batra and Mouma Das fought hard before going down against defending champions Feng Tianwei and Yu Mengyu to settle for a Silver medal in the women's doubles, a first ever for India in the Commonwealth Games.

Batra, who had led India to a historic triumph in team championship, could not do the same alongside Das on Friday. Tianwei and Mengyu came well prepared to counter Batra's variations with the pimpled rubber and cruised to a 11-5, 11-4, 11-5 victory.

A Silver nonetheless was a remarkable result for the Indian team which could not make the final in the past four Games.

In the Bronze medal play-off, the Malaysian combine of Ying Ho and Karen Lyne got the better of India's Sutirtha Mukherjee and Pooja Sahasrabudhe 15-13, 11-7, 8-11, 11-7.

The Indians are also in medal contention in the men's and mixed double's.

Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan are already assured of a medal, having reached the men's doubles final.

The Indian pair came from behind to beat Yew En Koen Pang and Shao Feng Ethan Poh 7-11, 11-5, 11-1, 11-3. They will face England's Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford in the finals.

Indian pair were near flawless after losing the first game. "No, it wasn't a slow start. We actually had trouble reading their serves. They were hitting them really well and we couldn't read the spin. At one point we were ahead, up 4-2, but we got stuck in ourselves. In the second part of the second game we started playing better and won a lot of points quite fast. It was really important to put the pressure on them."

Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shetty lost their semifinal and will play for bronze on Saturday. The pairings of Sharath and Das, and Sathiyan and Batra have also made the mixed doubles semifinals.