KARACHI: Pakistan's handball team defeated Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Hong Kong in the preliminary rounds of the Asian Beach Games being held in Haiyang, China from June 16-22.

Pakistan beat the three teams with the same margin of 2-0 and are ranked at number two in Group B, behind Qatar whom they face in the final preliminary match on Tuesday.

Apart from handball, Pakistan is also participating in beach kabaddi and windsurfing.

The handball team comprises 10 players and two officials, the kabaddi team includes six players and two officials while the sailing squad has three players and an one official.

Pakistan  will play their preliminary matches of beach kabbadi against Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The coach of the men's kabaddi team, Gulbadshan, said that Pakistan were hoping to perform better at this year's edition of the Asian Beach Games.

“We just had the men’s team attend this year's Asian Beach Games but our strongest opponent is the Indian team that has won gold medals for the kabaddi games in the last two Asian Beach Games, while we only won silver medals. We want to perform better this time,” the official website quoted him as saying.

At the 2010 Asian Beach Games, Pakistan bagged six medals in total; silver medals in kabaddi, handball, tent-pegging and a bronze medal in sailing.