KARACHI: Over a dozen cueists, qualifiers and juniors, will make their debut when the 44th National Snooker Championship cues off at the Karachi Gymkhana Billiards Hall on Wednesday.

The 13 players who are expected to make their maiden appearance in the country’s premier snooker event includes Mohammad Mudassir, Rabish Pervez, M. Hamza Ilyas, M. Rizwan Hashmi, Ahsan Ramzan, Abdul Jalil, Ali Raza, Mohammad Saleem, Mirza Waqas Baig, Rashid Aziz, Ameer Hamza Khan, Syed Habib Shah and Abdul Hameed.

Four players including incumbent champion Mohammad Asif who have laid their hands on the national title, are among the 56 participants the other three being Mohammad Bilal, Mohammad Sajjad and Shahid Aftab.

Rawalpindi-based Babar Masih, meanwhile, heads the seed­ings and has been placed in group A. He is followed by Asif, Zulfi­qar A Qadir, Mohammad Majid Ali, Bilal, Sharjeel Mehmood, Shahid and Rambel Gul.

Babar had a consistent run in the second half of last year winning the third ranking tournament besides tasting 6-8 defeat at the hands of Sajjad’s sibling Mohammad Ijaz in the NBP Cup final.

Seasoned Zulfiqar Qadir, Sharjeel, Rambel Gul, Sohail Shehzad and Abdul Sattar have the ability to pose serious threat to the trio of Babar, Asif and Bilal.

Rising cueist Majid, who clinched bronze in the IBSF 6-Reds event at Marsa Alam late last year, can prove to be the dark horse. He has grew his stature after stepping into men category and occupied fourth slot in the seeding besides being the youngest among top eight.

There were lot of expectations from Mohammad Naseem Akhtar after he won the world junior title but he has lacked since then.

Wednesday’s fixtures:

At 10am: Mohammad Asif (Punjab) vs Mubashir Raza (Punjab), M. Hamza Ilyas (Punjab) vs Samiullah (Balochistan), Sirbuland Khan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) vs M. Rizwan Hashmi (Sindh), Babar Masih (Punjab) vs Mohammad Shahbaz (Punjab), Mohammad Mudassir (Islamabad) vs Mohammad Naseem Akhtar (Punjab), Rabish Pervez (Balochistan) vs Fazal Umar Butt (Sindh).

At 12noon: Mohammad Majid Ali (Punjab) vs Ali Raza (Sindh), Ahsan Ramzan (Punjab) vs M. Imran Qamar (Punjab), Sultan Mohammad (Sindh) vs Abdul Jalil (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Zulfiqar A. Qadir (Sindh) vs Imran Shehzad (Punjab), Shaikh M. Mudssir (Punjab) vs Fawad Khan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Amir Tariq (Punjab) vs Bahadur Khan (Balochistan).

At 2pm: Sharjeel Mehmood (Khyber Pakhtunkh) vs Danish Haroon (Sindh), Haris Tahir (Punjab) vs M. Ahsan Javaid (Punjab), Shafiullah (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) vs Saeed Khan (Balochistan), Mohammad Bilal (Punjab) vs Rashid Aziz (Punjab), Ali Haider (Punjab) vs Farukh Usman (Sindh), Abdul Raziq (Balochistan) vs Mirza Waqas Baig (Punjab).

At 4pm: Rambel Gul (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) vs Abdul Hameed (Balochistan), Aakash Rafique (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) vs Amir Shehzad (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Abu Saim (Punjab) vs Sohail Shehzad (Sindh), Shahid Aftab (Punjab) vs Amir Sohail (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Mohammad Ijaz (Punjab) vs S. Habib Shah (Balochistan), Abdul Sattar (Sindh) vs Ameer Hamza Khan (Islamabad).

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2019