dr.umer
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BALI, Oct 22 (APP): Pakistan had to content with a silver medal in the Bali Asian Beach Games Kabaddi tournament when India beat them 37-32 in the final here on Wednesday at Beach kabaddi arena.
India led 20-16 at half time before a full house as Pakistan failed to break the winning jinx of their arch rival at Asia level. Interestingly, in all the previous finals at Asian Games in Qatar, Asian Indoor Games at Macau and now at Bali, Pakistan lost to India in all these finals and it was Indias fourth title which they won in a row in the past two years.
In the most crucial game, Pakistan was without its key players Faryad, Wasim Sajjad and Wajid Ali who were on the injury list and their absence proved a big setback as the new players failed to do much against an experienced side.
Pakistans best performance came in the first session in which it managed to come closer at points table after being 7-10,10-12. Pakistani players were agile but lacked speed and prowess which Indians demonstrated in a bigger way to widen lead in the second session, making rapid progress to the title.
Nasir Ali, Tajammal Hussain and Mohammad Akram impressed with their raiding abilities and time to time superior grabbing of opponents but Indians appeared too aggressive to cut down all such efforts with higher level of game and received immense support from their most outstanding players Anoop, Gairibabu and Pramod.
In the last league match on Tuesday night, Pakistan denied a win to India as Nasir claimed one in the last 20 seconds to earn a 41-41 draw. Pakistan also beat Thailand 59-25 in a morning session match on the same day.
Keeping in view Pakistans fight back in the last league match, it was expected that they will be a lot better in the final but the absence of key players proved a grave disadvantage for them.
It was a bad day for us as we were without our key players but we did our best to get a favourable result, said teams manager, Ahmad Nadim while talking to APP after the final.
He said India put a better show in the second half as Pakistan demonstrated fine performance in the first session of the game. There was not much difference between the two teams but our players could not sustain the pressure in the second half, he said.
President Pakistan Olympic Association, Lt Gen retd Syed Arif Hasan who witnessed the match announced a cash award of Rs 25000 for each player and congratulated the team on winning the silver medal.
Secretary Pakistan Kabaddi Federation, Muhammad Sarwar said it was unfortunate to lose the final after doing so good in the pool matches. I was anticipating my teams success but unfortunately injury to our key players let us down in the final, he said.
Meanwhile, India completed a double crown in Kabaddi when their women team beat Thailand in the women kabaddi final.
