KARACHI: Having won the 6-Reds individual title once and seized second position in team event at home last year, a four-member Pakistan snooker team leaves to Kish Island, Iran, via Dubai on Saturday noon to compete in the third Asian Team Event and fourth 6-Reds snooker championship which runs from May 24 to 31.

Three cueists of the team — reigning Asian champion Hamza Akbar, former world amateur and Asian 6-Reds champion Mohammad Asif and world snooker championship runner-up and ex-world team event gold medallist Mohammad Sajjad — brings rich experience under their belts and have the potential to win more laurels to the nation.

Pakistan No 2 Shahram Changezi is the other member of the team who too, is an experienced hand but has not been able to win any international title.

Two-time national champion Hamza, who went down fighting 5-6 to Iran’s Amir Sarkosh in the semi-final of the Asian 6-Reds held in the city last year, scaled new heights by winning the Asian title at Kuala Lumpur recently. He surprised the pundits by getting the better of Indian celebrity Pankaj Advani in the final.

33-year-old Asif, who rose to fame by capturing the IBSF world snooker title at Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2012, teamed up with Sajjad to win the IBSF world team title at Carlow, Ireland, in 2013. The same year he won Asian 6-Reds crown at Doha. The pair clinched two silver medals in Asian and world team events at Karachi and Sharm-el-Sheikh respectively.

Sajjad’s story is like ‘so near yet so far’. Following the footsteps of veteran Mohammad Yousuf and Mohammad Asif, he reached pinnacle of his career by reaching the IBSF world snooker championship final at Bangalore where he went down 7-8 to Chinese Yan Bingtao in Nov last year.

Hamza, Asif and Sajjad are employed in National Bank of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the cueists will be accompanied by two international referees namely Shabbir Hussain and Naveed Kapadia.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2015

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