The Indian men's basketball team upstaged Chinese Taipei 80-68 in the final classification match to finish seventh in the FIBA Asia Challenge 2016 in Tehran on Sunday.
For India, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi stole the limelight, scoring 22 points, while Amritpal Singh scored 20 with 13 rebounds and Rikin Pethani scored 17 points with 9 rebounds. Yu-An Chiang was the top scorer for Chinese Taipei with 16 points.
India had also upset China and Philippines earlier on in this competition. Considering the higher number of teams this time around, this is India's best ever performance at the Asian level in 27 years, since they finished sixth at the 1989 FIBA Asia Championship.
Chinese Taipei took the early initiative in the match and surged ahead 22-15 in the first quarter. The Indians, however, came back strongly and in the second quarter took a slender one-point lead at 33-32.
In the second half, two of India's "Big Three" - centre Amritpal and shooting guard Vishesh Bhriguvanshi - started to take over. A powerful dunk by Amritpal midway through the third got India a slender three-point lead, before Taipei made another push of their own to lead 50-46.
The momentum swung back India's way late in the period thanks to six unanswered points, which included a two pointer by Talwinderjit Sahi with just eight seconds left.
India had now outscored Taipei in back to back quarters and led 52-50 heading into the final 10 minutes. It set the ball rolling for the Indians in the fourth and final quarter as they completely dominated the period with a 28-18 scoreline to seal the contest.
The margin of the 80-68 victory is especially significant considering that Taipei had beaten India by 24 points (90-66) earlier on in the preliminary group B. Prior to that, India had lost to Taipei by six points during the 38th William Jones Cup International Basketball Tournament in July.