KARACHI: Defending champions Bounce Club successfully defended its title by beating Nishter Club 40-35 in a nail-biting final to win the 13th NBP Cup basketball tournament here on Monday in front of a very handsome crowd at the Arambagh courts.

Although Nishter Club had dominated the first three quarter of the final by playing very aggressive game, the tide was turned by Bounce Club’s two brothers — Muzammil Haussain and Mubassir Hussain — who scored ten and seven points respectively to get their team into a winning position. Zia Ahmed (8 points) also played well for the winners.

For Nishter Club, Ali Chunzabe (15 points) led the attack and was well supported by talented Talha Amjad who scored 12 points while Shabbir (6 points) was also outstanding

National Bank of Pakistan’s Head of Sports and former Test spinner Iqbal Qasim was the chief guest on the occasion and distributed cash prizes and trophies among the teams and the players. Speaking on the occasion, Iqbal said that the NBP president Saeed Ahmed is all for patronage of basketball as well as other sports and the bank will continue to support sports in every way.

He praised KBBA president Ghulam Mohammad for organizing a superb tournament and thanked NBP Sports Group Head Shaukat Khattak for his constant support. Iqbal also gave special awards to Azmatullah, Abdul Nasir, Khalid Shamsi, Mumtaz Ahmed, Zafar Iqbal for their services in promotion of sports.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2018