April 7, 2003	Monday	Safar 4, 1424

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KARACHI, April 6: The Prelims Bridge trials for selecting six top teams from Sindh concluded Saturday evening at Aslam Bridge Hall after six tiring rounds, starting from 2.00 p.m and lasted till midnight.

After the conclusion of the first phase eight teams have been taken for the second phase and now they would play single round robin and finally six teams would fly to Lahore for the final showdown between qualifiers from Punjab.

From Dr. Ilyas House where three seeded teams were almost certain to qualify were Candyland, Lipton and Allana so the only contest seemed for the fourth qualifiers. Candyland entered with an unblemished record of success winning all their matches. Lipton lost two matches on their way first to Candyland and finally to Allana. The star studded Allana also entered second phase with an uninterrupted run since they did not play last round match against Candyland due to points basis.

However, the most pleasing entry in the final phase from this group was of Jamal IV who made last minute rush against Strikers and got maximum eliminating Bhurgari’s chances to qualify. Mahmood IV, sealed the fate of Bhurgari defeating them with maximum score in the last crucial round.

In Aslam House, with the exception of Giants and Multi, it was an open field for any team to qualify with a good game and lot of luck. Multi with celebrated players first started with a deficit score match from EFU, but later on they did not indulge for any high-scoring risks and emerge in the second phase leading. Giants only defeat came from Multi otherwise they were also playing safe. Their expertise paid off and they had lot to spare before the final round began. Bridge Warriors and Raees, though belong to same school of thought, yet they put up fighting spirit in all the matches.

Bridge Warriors known to be the believers of very aggressive style of bidding, qualified despite three losses out of eight. Raees put up a better show and lost only one match.

Following are the combinations of the qualifiers.

GIANTS: Masud Saleem, Masud Mazhar, Maj. Zaidi, Hasan Jawad & Yusuf Talpur.

MULTI: Tahir Masud, Rashidul Ghazi, Amin Hakeem, Javed Ahmed, Shahin Iqbal and Mohsin Chandna.

RAEES: Raees Ahmed, Anwer Kemal, Ghulam Mohammed, Jamal Nizami & Naveed Anjum.

BRIDGE WARRIORS: Pervaiz Mirza, Gulzar Bilal, Shakeel Chandna, Saleem Ahmed, Mazhar Ali Khan and Shoaib Khan.

Candyland: Muhammad Ismail, Imran Jaka, Ziaullah Baig, Khalid Mohiuddin, Hamid Mohiuddin and Hasan Askari. ALLANA: Rehman Allana, Jane Alam Fazli, Sultan Siddiqui, Rashid Jafer, Tehsin Gheewala and Sarfraz Khan.

LITPON: M.A. Ansari, Tariq Rasheed Khan, Abdul Khaliq, Nasir Reza Khan & Sattar Cochinwala.

JAMAL: M.G. Siddiqui, S.P. Jamal, Nasir Khan, Taqi Reza and Shahab Saeed.