KARACHI, May 2: Pakistan will play host to the second Asian 6-Redball snooker tournament in Karachi sometime in February-March next year, president of the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) Alamgir Shaikh said on Wednesday.

The competition was allotted to Pakistan by the general body of the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports (ACBS) which met on the sidelines of the Asian snooker championship in Doha recently.

“Pakistan was supposed to convince the regional body for awarding the 2013 Asian spectacle but India sticks not to surrender its right won at Indore,” the PBSA chief, who returned from Doha on Tuesday, told Dawn.

He said prior to going to Doha he had the blessings of sponsors and the government for getting the nod of Asian body for staging an international event.

The inaugural Asian 6-Redball contest was held at Chanthaburi, Thailand, last year.

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan enjoys an enviable record in the baize game and had played host to the world and Asian championships, the recent being a seven-nation contest in March.

To a query, he said five nations were in line for staging the 2014 Asian championship. These include Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar and Thailand.

Meanwhile, Hani Khoury of Jordan and Mubarak Hamad Al Khayarin of Qatar were elected president and secretary respectively of the ACBS in the elections for the next term of two years.

They ended the long reign of Sindhu Pulsirivong of Thailand and Syed Mehboob of Bangladesh respectively.

Pakistan’s Ali Asghar Valika was unopposed elected as vice-president while Bahrain’s Mohammad Abdullah was voted treasurer succeeding Hong Kong’s Joseph Lo.

Alamgir described performance of Pakistan’s top two cueists — Mohammad Asif and Sultan Mohammad — in the Asian championship as humiliating. “They played below par and even failed to qualify for the knockout stage,” he remarked.

He added the overall standard of the event was “mediocre” as reigning world champion Hossein Vafaei Ayouri of Iran, former world champion Pankaj Advani of India, and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh of Thailand failed to live up to their reputation.

“We’ll discuss selection criteria for the future and try to amend it with consensus in the PBSA board meeting,” he added.