Terrific three: Deepak, Hussamudin, Nishant assure best-ever medal haul for India at World C'ships

Boxers Deepak Bhoria 51kg Mohammed Hussamudin 57kg and Nishant Dev 71kg scripted history as they ensured India of its bestever haul of three medals by storming into the semifinals of the mens World Championships here on WednesdayThe quarterfinal wins mean the three pugilists will take home at least a bronze medal eachIndias previous best show came in 2019 edition when Amit Panghal clinched an unprecedented silver and Manish Kaushik grabbed a bronze medalAlso ReadDeepak Hussamudin punch their way into semifinals assure India of 2 medals at World CshipsKicking off the proceeding for India Deepak defeated Nurzhigit Diushebaev of Kyrgyzstan by a 50 unanimous verdict to continue his scintillating run in the flyweight category which will feature at the Paris OlympicsSuch was the Indians domination that the referee was forced to give Diushebaev two standing counts in the latter stages of the boutFighting from a distance Deepak looked for opportunities to land clean and accurate punchesTrailing 05 Diushebaev started the second round on an aggressive note but Deepak put up a solid defence and counter attacked with combination of punchesOne such onslaught led the referee to give Diushebaev his first eight countHaving taken the opening two rounds Deepak was more defensive in the final three minutes He boxed smartly landing jabs whenever he got the opportunityTwotime Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Hussamundin then had to toil hard as he eked out a 43 split decision win in a close fight against J Diaz Ibanez of BulgariaHussamudin was involved in a messy bout that involved a lot of clinching The first round was fought on even keel with Hussamudin edging past the Bulgarian fifth seed 32 in the quarterfinalsAs the seconds ticked by Hussamudin became more confident and started dominating the proceedings He landed heavy blows to take the final two roundsNishants performance was the cherry on the cake as he knocked out Cubas Jorge Cuellar by an unanimous verdictThe 22yearold who is the reigning national champion was relentless and kept attacking the Cuban through out the nine minutesNishant who made a quarterfinal exit in the last edition was determined to not make a last eight exit again He was quicker than his opponent and used that to land a flurry of punches on Cuellars faceHe also used body blows to tire out his opponent and book a place in the last four of the light middleweight categoryIndia has so far won a total of seven medals including a silver in the previous editionsIndias previous medal winners at the mens World Championships include Vijender Singh bronze 2009 Vikas Krishan bronze 2011 Shiva Thapa bronze 2015 Gaurav Bidhuri bronze 2017 Panghal silver 2019 Kaushik bronze 2019 and Akash Kumar bronze 2021This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever