KARACHI, Aug 27: Police and Sindh reached the final after winning their respective semi-finals on the penultimate day of the 8th National Men’s Netball Championship 2008.
Wednesday’s matches at the City Sports Complex saw the completion of the pool matches in the morning as well as the two hour-long semi-finals in the evening.
The first round match, a Pool ‘B’ affair, between Wapda and Navy was won by Wapda 28-17. Wapda’s goal-shooter (GS) Furqan got them 17 goals while their goal-attack (GA) Mohammad Akhtar contributed 11. In reply, Navy’s GA Shahryar fetched 11 with GS Ghulam Mustafa adding another six.
The second encounter between Punjab and Islamabad, in Pool ‘A’, was easily won by Punjab 22-7. GS Shahzad (14 goals) and GA Zubair (eight goals) scored for the winners while GS Farhan (four) and GA Qasim (three) scored for the losing outfit.
Meanwhile, the third match between Police and Balochistan, also in Pool ‘A’ was won by Police 24-10 with GS Wahid (14) and GA Zahid (10) bringing in the goals for Police and GS Malik (seven) and GA Zulfiqar (three) replying for Balochistan.
The first semi-final between the Pool ‘A’ winner and Pool ‘B’ runner up saw Police facing Wapda. Although Wapda’s goalkeeper (GK) Yawar was able to keep many of his opponents’ attempts in check, Police’s continuous 10-goal lead throughout the longer-duration match with four 15-minute quarters kept the lanky Wapda players under constant pressure.
GK Yawar’s antics around the pole while blocking goals won him quite a bit of applause and cheering from the spectators, specially when he banged into the pole, but the referees weren’t amused and sent him off the field for rough play, twice. Finally Wapda replaced him with their reserve goalie Noman in the last quarter.
The match was won by Police 49-40. GA Zahid scored 29 and GS Wahid 20 for Police. Meanwhile, GS Furqan (24) and GA Mohammad Akhtar (16) scored for Wapda.
The last match of the day, the second semi-final between the Pool ‘B’ winner and Pool ‘A’ runner up — two evenly-matched teams —was between Sindh and Punjab. Sindh only got ahead in the last two quarters to win the match 39-34. And for that they have GA Awais (31) and GS Hafiz (eight) to thank. GA Zubair (20) and GS Shahzad (14) scored for Punjab.
The championship being held in collaboration with Pakistan Sports Trust (PST), Sindh Netball Association (SNA) and CDGK concludes on Thursday with the playing of the third position match between Punjab and Wapda (at 1.00pm) and the final between Police and Sindh (at 5.30pm) followed by the closing ceremony.
