Kolkata: Vishesh Khanna capitalized the most of his foes’ follies and scripted a brilliant comeback victory to win the Tollygunge Junior, the eighth and final leg of the Tata Steel IGU East Zone Junior/Sub-Junior Tour which concluded at the Tollygunge Club here on Tuesday.

Trailing by three shots overnight, and by four shots until the 16th hole in the final round, Vishesh hit a jackpot with overnight joint-leader Sunit Chowrasia hitting ‘out of bounds’ (OB) twice and making a quadruple bogey and then missing a small par-putt on the 18th to surrender the title. Vishesh who ended up with a two-day total of 15-over 155 managed to scrape past Sunit just by a solitary shot and emerge victorious. Viraj Khanna finished third at 159 while the other over-night joint leader Raj Ali was fourth at 161. Nishkarsh Sachdeva was fifth while Parvez Khan and Mohd. Imitiaz finished sixth and seventh respectively in the top category (A & B).

Raj Ali had the consolation of finishing as the winner in Category B whileNishkarsh was the runner-up. Yashvardhan Sarda finished third with Udayjit Bhalotia occupying the fourth position. Rohan Agarwal was fifth. The Category C honours was captured by Hashan Rahman with Bibek Sardar finishing second. Devansh Chadha and Kshitij Sehgal finished third and fourth respectively.  Sandeep Yadav topped in Category D with Rajib Ali ending up second and Divij Sehgal in third place. Kaushal Bagrodia emerged as the winner in Category E with Pranshu Poddar in second position. Chitragandha Singh wasthe winner in the Girls (D) category.

Former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly who was present to felicitate the winners along with Farzan R Heerjee, Chief Corporate Relations, Office of the MD , Tata Steel, spelt his magic charm on the gathering. Known for his aggressiveness both on and off the field, Ganguly, was an motivation to the budding stars while regaling them with anecdotes and inspiring stories on and off the field. He also talked about leadership skills and commitment which would help in any walk of life.
“I am thrilled to win my first event on the Tour,” said an ecstatic Vishesh who admitted that it was a gift from Sunit. “He (Sunit) went on the aggressive and hit two out of bounds on the 16th.  Then I used my 4-iron and kept it safe,” admitted the 16-year-old St. Xaviers Class XI student. “Again I was lucky on the final hole when he missed a small putt else the match would have gone into a play-off,” said the champion.
Vishesh opened his account with a birdie, his sole one for the round while also making a triple on the par-4 fifth. However, he maintained his calm on the back nine saving some good pars while accepting the “generosity”  from Sunit on the 16th to win the title by a solitary shot.

Meanwhile, the top six players from each category on the Tata Steel IGU East Zone Junior/Sub-Junior Tour Order of Merit qualified for the National final.

CATEGORY A & B
155 Vishesh Khanna (CAT A) (78, 77); 156 Sunit Chowrasia (CAT A) (75, 81); 159   Viraj Khanna (CAT A) (79, 80); 161 Raj Ali (CAT B) (75, 86); 166 Nishkarsh Sachdeva (CAT B) (79, 87); 166 Parwez Khan (CAT A) (84, 82); 167 Md Imitiaz (CAT A) (90, 77); 169 Yashvardhan Sarda (CAT B) (86, 83); 169 Upansu Sekhar Ghose (CAT A) (94, 75); 170 Udayjit Bhalotia (CAT B) (89, 81); 174 Sumant Lenka (CAT A) (81, 93); 176 Rohan Agarwal (CAT B) (85, 91)

CATEGORY B
161 Raj Ali (75, 86); 166 Nishkarsh Sachdeva (79, 87); 169 Yashvardhan Sarda (86, 83); 170 Udayjit Bhalotia (89, 81); 176 Rohan Agarwal (85, 91); 176 Kunal Naidu (89, 87); 177 Bishwam Ghosh (91, 86); 178 Amit Kumar Shaw (85, 93)

CATEGORY C
153 Hashan Rahman (73, 80); 156 Bibek Sardar (80, 76); 168 Devansh Chadha (86, 82); 174 Kshitij Sehgal (89, 85); 180 Manish Rajak (89, 91); 182 Rohil Chokhany (88, 94); 189 Sreenjoy Majumdar(93, 96)

CATEGORY D
161 Sandeep Yadav (83, 78); 173 Rajib Ali (89, 84); 176 Divij Sehgal (92, 84); 178 Abhikanks Basu(90, 88)
CATEGORY E
98 Kaushal Bagrodia (48, 50); 104 Pranshu Poddar (55, 49); 114 Anshul Wahee (60, 54); 125 Arav Shanghavi (65, 60)

GIRLS (Cat D)
203 Chitragandha Singh (99, 104)
Qualifiers for the National Final:
Cat A: Sunit Chowrasia; Viraj Khanna; Vishesh Khanna; Md Imitiaz Parwez Khan; Sumant Lenka
Cat B: Gurkirat Singh; Udayjit Bhalotia; Yashvardhan Sarda; Zahed Khan; Kunal Naidu; Niskarsh Sachdeva

Cat C: Hashan Rahman; Bibek Sardar; Devansh Chadha; Manish Rajak; Rohil Chokhani
Cat D: Sandeep Yadav; Rajib Ali; Abhikanks Basu; Aroush Tagore; Prataham Chowdhary; Divij Sehgal

By Indian Sports News