At a time when Army is engaged in Operation Zarb-i-Azb and making Herculean efforts to eradicate terrorism from the country, hosting of the 18-nation third Jubilee Insurance World 6-Reds and Team Snooker Championships at hotel Movenpick recently has come as a good omen for Pakistan.

Besides sending positive signals across the world regarding the improved security situation in the country, the 10-day spectacle enabled the fraternity of the game to watch top men and women cueists in action.

It was a treat to watch Indian celebrity Pankaj Advani, Chinese sensation Yan Bingtao, Hong Kong’s Ng On Yee among others displaying their prowess in the international event.

It must be mentioned here that be it the performance of cueists or hosting a mega snooker event, Pakistan has been in the forefront since long. It has been hosting at least one international event annually, thanks to the sincere efforts of the organisers and the terrific support from the sponsors who incurred approximately Rs25 million this time round.

Sixteen new tables and set of balls were imported from China for the event that was held in the Darbar Hall of the leading hotel.

Four gold, as many silver and eight bronze medals were at the stake in men’s and women’s 6-Reds and men’s and masters team events.

India — which were represented by a healthy squad of 22 people including 13 men, seven women cueists besides a coach and a referee — attained top slot by securing 1-1-2 (gold, silver and bronze) medals. Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Malaysia won one gold medal each.

However, Pakistan unfortunately went goldless and had to be content with two silver and three bronze. Contrary to the expectations where the hosts were set to lap up a couple of golds, the Pakistani cueists failed to rise to the occasion and lost at crucial stages of the events. Both Asjad Iqbal and Mohammad Asif could have won their 6-Reds semi-finals against Pankaj and Bingtao respectively but fell short.

The absence of Pakistan No 1 and reigning Asian champion Hamza Akbar was very much felt as he was barred by the World Professional and Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) after becoming eligible for their circuit.

The event also provided Pakistan an opportunity to field 13 players in the 6-Reds, nine teams in men’s and three in masters team events.

India’s Pankaj, who was shocked by Hamza in the final of the Asian Snooker championship at Kuala Lumpur earlier this year, retained the 6-Reds title. He beat China’s Yan Bingtao 6-2 in the final.The latter is world 15-Reds champion, having beaten Pakistan’s Mohammad Sajjad at Bangalore last year.

Hong Kong’s Ng On Yee captured the women’s 6-Reds crown by getting the better of Indian Vidya Pillai, mother of a three-year-old son, 5-2.

Malaysia and Afghanistan returned victorious in the men’s and masters team events respectively. The women’s team event could not take place due to lack of entries.

Maxime Cassis, the vice-president of the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) and tournament director Joseph Lo remained present throughout the event while president of the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports (ACBS) Mubarak Al Khayarin arrived a day before the closing ceremony from Qatar. The foreigners were of all praise for the PBSF President Alamgir Shaikh and Pakistan’s hospitality during the events.

The Ministry of Interior was gracious enough to issue visas to the Indian team in time for participation in the event. Unfortunately, the event was immediately followed by tensions on the border.

One thing that has been observed that time and again is that the PBSF is short of manpower. It hardly has two to three people to run the entire show and it sometimes creates chaos. For example, Naveed Kapadia who is not an employee of the PBSF and looks after the media people, was overburdened owing to other duties assigned to him. Due to this reason, the sports journalists who covered the event, faced a lot of difficulties in filing the curtain-raiser and results at least for the first three days of the event.

“You can take the groups and the results from the IBSF website,” said an official when asked for detailed results of the matches. Besides, there’s no system of grooming technical people in most of the sports. The casual trend of sending incomplete and wrong results has created problems for the media personnel and have affected their deadlines for filing reports.

Apart from media complaint in the beginning, everything was perfect and PBSF deserves kudos for that. A word of praise is also due for Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, Sindh Rangers, Karachi Police and the sponsors Jubilee Insurance for extending their support in making the event a resounding success.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2015

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