BANGALORE: In keeping with the welcome trend of felicitating medal winners in Indian sport, it was the 5th Commonwealth tenpin bowling bronze medal winning foursome who were accorded the honour at a function here on Friday.Prathima Hegde, Swapna Mitra, Akaash Ashok Kumar and Shabbir Dhankot bagged the bronze defeating Australia in that game at the championships in Kuala Lumpur in February this year.The Indian mixed team had a total score of 4865 for a superb average of 202.71 which fetched them the bronze ahead of Australia which managed 4753 at 198.04.Prathima had a score of 1175 for an average of 195.83, Akaash had 1308 and the highest average among the four of 218.00, Swapna Mitra 1186 for 197.67 and Shabbir 1196 for 199.33.Incidentally, Singapore won the gold with a score of 5185 (216.04 average) while Malaysia took the silver with an effort of 5055 (210.63).As such, the Indian were not too far away from the silver or gold, coached as they were by the former Malaysian champion Allan Chia.The Tenpin Bowling federation (India) president Karti Chidambaram gave away a trophy and a cheque of Rs 75,000 to each of the four players and the coach for their splendid showing.Abdul Hameed of Andhra Pradesh who had won the Commonwealth Masters bowling individual silver medal back in 2002.This is the second medal for India in the event’s history.Prathima, who has had some stupendous performacnes at the national and international level, was surely hungry for more.“Yeah, this is a great motivator for me and I am sure for all of us.I will continue to work hard and hope to be among the medal winners at the 2014 Asian Games,” said Prathima, the only Indian to have qualified for the top 24 of the AMF World Cup in 2009-10.Swapna, Akaash and Shabbir echoed her sentiments.Swapna was the first runner- up in the women’s graded category at the Hong Kong Open in 2010.Recent winner of the state league, Akaash won a silver and a bronze at this year’s nationals and had averages of 228.83 at the Malaysian Open and 200.67 at the Macau Open.Shabir, the 2010 national champion has averaged above 200 in the Malaysian, Macau and Indonesian Open meets.“We are on the right track.As I have often said, the Asian Games in 2014 is our target.Hopefully, after this very encouraging performance, we will realise our dream.We are totally committed to providing all necessary training and exposure trips to the players.It is up to them to make the most of it,” said Karti.“The players have improved a lot in the past year and more.If you look at their averages, they have not only gone up but have consistently gone up.More importantly, they do not have the mental block of facing international competition.I am sure they will do better in future,” said the genial Malaysian coach Allan Chia.R.Kannan, the secretary general of the federation, was also present
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