Pakistan open volleyball campaign at Asian Games with victory

Published September 20, 2023
JINHUA: North Korea’s Ri Il Song (L) vies for the ball with Wen Chih-hao of Taiwan during their Asian Games match on Tuesday.—AFP
JINHUA: North Korea’s Ri Il Song (L) vies for the ball with Wen Chih-hao of Taiwan during their Asian Games match on Tuesday.—AFP

HANGZHOU: Pakistan’s volleyball team opened their Asian Games campaign with a credible straight-sets win over Mongolia in Hangzhou on Tuesday.

While the opening ceremony of the Games — taking place from Sept 23-Oct 8 — does not take place until Saturday, several sports began on Tuesday, including football, volleyball, beach volleyball and cricket.

Pakistan won their opening Pool ‘D’ tie 25-17, 25-19, 25-20 with Murad Khan Junior playing an influential role with his powerful serves and strong attacks at the net. They face Chinese Taipei next on Wednesday.

The first event of the day was a clash between Indonesia and Mongolia in the women’s T20 cricket competition, which Indonesia won by 172 runs after bowling out Mongolia for just 15 runs.

Mongolia’s women were making their debut at an international tournament and were given a harsh lesson as Indonesia made 187-4 in the Twenty20 preliminary-round match.

Indonesia’s total included 49 extras, 38 of them wides by the Mongolian bowlers. In reply, an outclassed Mongolia were out for 15 in 10 overs.

Mongolia’s coach David Talalla said he was proud of his young team — their average age is just 19 — given their very limited resources and experience of the sport.

More than half of his players had never even left Mongolia before and this was their first experience of a grass wicket, having been used to an artificial pitch at home.

Mongolia’s kit is second-hand from Australia, and their four bats donated by a French ambassador whose wife is English and a cricket fan, said Talalla, who is working for free.

“I know we’ve only made 15 runs but none of our girls have played the game for longer than two years and we know what a technical game it is,” said Talalla.

“We’ve only got a squad of 12 — that’s all we could afford to bring,” added Talalla, saying all of his players were in tears afterwards.

“The whole idea is the longer picture — cricket in Mongolia, who would have thought it?” he said. “Even myself, I’ve only been in the job here for five weeks as a high-performance coach but six months ago, I didn’t even know they played cricket in Mongolia. I think most of the world didn’t.”

In men’s football, North Korea returned to major international competition for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic with a 2-0 win over Taiwan. North Korea closed its already tight borders in early 2020 following the Covid outbreak and skipped the Tokyo Olympics, which were pushed back to 2021 because of the pandemic. The country was then banned from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics for failing to take part in Tokyo.

But North Koreans are competing at its first multisport event since the Asian Games in Jakarta in 2018.

Rivals South Korea began their quest for a third men’s Asian Games gold in a row with a 9-0 demolition of Kuwait. Attacking midfielder Jeong Woo-yeong, who plays for Stuttgart in Germany, hit a hat-trick.

There was home delight as China began their Games football campaign with a 5-1 thumping of India.

Asian Games men’s football squads are made up of under-23 players but teams are allowed three older players.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2023

Opinion

One year on

One year on

Governance by the ruling coalition has been underwhelming and marked by growing authoritarianism.

Editorial

Climate funding gap
Updated 17 Feb, 2025

Climate funding gap

Pakistan must boost its institutional capacity to develop bankable climate projects.
UN monitoring report
17 Feb, 2025

UN monitoring report

THE latest report of the UN Security Council’s sanctions monitoring team paints a grim picture of the banned...
Tax policy reform
17 Feb, 2025

Tax policy reform

THE cabinet’s decision to create a Tax Policy Office at the finance ministry has raised hopes that tax policy is...
Maintaining balance
Updated 16 Feb, 2025

Maintaining balance

It must take a more proactive approach to establishing Pakistan’s bona fides.
Welcome return
16 Feb, 2025

Welcome return

IT is almost here; the moment Pakistan has long been waiting for — the first International Cricket Council...
Childhood trauma
16 Feb, 2025

Childhood trauma

BEING a child in this society should not be so hard. But recurrent reports of child abuse — from burying girl...