KARACHI: Despite a sluggish start, Army picked up momentum to thump unfancied Balochistan 53-27 in the group ‘A’ match of the fifth Kashmir Cup Basketball Championship which commenced at the wooden court of the KPT Sports Complex on Monday.

The soldiers were found wanting in scoring as the match begun which is evident from low-scoring 10-5 score of first quarter. The scoring was slightly improved in the second 14-7 as the teams changed ends 24-12 at half time. The pace of play remained the same in the third quarter 11-7 but in the last the soldiers mustered 18 points as against eight by the opponents to post convincing victory.

The victory was revolved around Javed Iqbal who garnered 24 points. He was ably assisted by Khalil and Allah Yar who contributed 11 and six respectively.

Ahmed and Owais scored nine and eight respectively for Balochistan.

Earlier, both the Sindh outfits — Greens and Reds — delighted the local fraternity by winning their respective group matches to make a winning start.

Sindh Greens whipped Fata 63-34 after enjoying 33-18 lead at half time. In a tall scoring first match of the day, Greens overcome first quarter’s resistance from the opponents to led 15-13, 18-5, 16-6 and 14-10. Four players — Talha Amjad (13), Ali Chanzeb (12), Tashfeen Zaidi (12) and Raj Kumar (10) — finished in double figures to steal the show.

Haris top scored for Fata with 15 and was followed by Adil Kamal six.

In the next match, prolific scorer Zia Ahmed with a brilliant score of 20 guided Sindh Reds to a convincing 82-44 victory over Khyber Pakhtun­khwa. Zian-ul-Abedin (16), Ashraf Yayha (13) and Mubashir (10) proved equally good. The scores of four quarters were 18-7, 14-12, 20-9 and 30-16.

Saqib, Waleed and Ziaullah scored 15, 11 and 10 respectively for the losers. The match also marked the formal inauguration of the event which was launched by the Sindh Basketball Association in the past.

The two teams were introduced to the chief guest, Iqbal Umer, a former Karachi Basketball Association president and chairman organising committee.

The Pakistan Basketball Federation (PBF) President retired Brig Rashid Malik and secretary, Khalid Bashir, Karachi Basketball Association president Amjad Ali, former international Mohammad Tanveer, organising secretary Abdul Nasir and co-secretary Mohammad Yaqoob were also present on the occasion.

According to organisers, the team of Police is expected to arrive early Tuesday morning while no confirmation has been received from the Navy yet.

Published in Dawn March 24th , 2015

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