June 10, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1428

KARACHI, June 9: A six-member Indian squad, including two players, arrived separately from Mumbai and Delhi on Saturday to compete in the 23rd Asian Snooker Championship which begins at a local hotel from Monday.

Former Asian champion Yasin Merchant, 41, a household name in fraternity of the game here, was the first to arrive by PK 275 at 3.30pm. He was accompanied by referee Ajay Rastogi and manager-cum-coach Sanjay Sawant.

His compatriot Alok Kumar, who won the title in Jordan three years ago, arrived by PK 273 at 4.45pm, 45minutes behind schedule, from Delhi. Indian delegate Ravinder Kishore Tandon and observer Amarjit Singh also arrived on the same flight.

A two-member Korean team, comprising Jung Tae-Hoon and Kim Do-Hoon, was due to arrive later in the night.

The Koreans are to be followed by a five-member squad from Bahrain which include Habib Sabah, Mohamad Al Shaikh (players), Salah Al-Maraghi (delegate), Nicholas Baroo (coach) and Ahmed Karim (reporter).

Other foreign teams namely China, Hong Kong, Iraq, Japan, Mangolia, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, UAE and Vietnam are slated to reach the city by Sunday.

Hosts Pakistan are the 15th team in the competition.

Meanwhile, the organisers are busy in giving final touches to the Asian event which is being played host by Pakistan fourth time the previous three being 1991, 1998 and 2001.