Manchester: The highly talented Abhinav Bindra and Sameer Ambekar provided India with the first gold medal in the 17th Commonwealth Games with a record-breaking performance in the men's 10 m rifle pairs event in shooting at the National Shooting Centre in Bisley on Saturday.

The Indian duo aggregated a record 1184 points to not only re-write the Commonwealth Games record but also open the medal account for the largest ever Indian contingent which had mixed fortunes on Friday.

The 19-year-old Chandigarh-based Bindra and partner Ambekar produced highest scores in five of the six rounds in the series to finish clear of the Malaysian pair of Mohammad Erman Zakaria and Mohammad Hameleay Mutalib who had to be content with the silver with a total of 1164 points.

England got the bronze medal with Chris Hector and Nigel Wallace collecting 1160 points. The 20-member Indian shooting squad is taking part in 28 events and is hoping to improve upon the tally of four gold, two silver and one bronze medal collected in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.

PTI