PANAJI: Team Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) has reached the final of the team billiards event of 17th PSPB Inter Unit Billiards & Snooker Championship 2021-22 ongoing at Clube Tennis de Gasper Dias, Miramar-Goa. In the semi-final match, they defeated Team BPCL scoring 448 against 268.
Team IOCL is represented by Brijesh Damani, Aditya Mehta, Laxman Rawat, Dhvaj Haria and Arif Akhtar.
The first game of the match was played between Brijesh Damani of IOCL and Manan Chandra of BPCL where Brijesh dominated and won the game 200 against 60.
In the second game, Aditya Mehta (IOCL) obtained the initial lead but very soon S. Shrikrishna (BPCL) got a chance and he made a fabulous recovery to obtain a very good lead. He had a chance to close the proceedings of the game but missed on the score of 186. Aditya didn’t miss that opportunity where he not only chased the lead but went ahead to win the game scoring a break of 48 points.
In the third game Team IOCL required 47 points, which they achieved through Dhvaj Haria (IOCL) playing against Devendra Joshi (BPCL).
The other semi-final of the team billiards event was between ONGC and Oil India Limited. For the first game, ONGC sent their main player Pankaj Advani against Simanta of OIL. After a few scoring shots Pankaj crafted a game-winning break of 184 points (unfinished) to secure the game 201-05. In the second game, the Asian Billiards No.2 player of ONGC Dhruv Sitwala stayed ahead of Amarish Kamalapuri of OIL and won the game 201-39. Amarish had few scoring shots but Dhruv maintained his lead and later posted an unfinished break of 62 to close the proceedings 404-44.
Earlier in the morning, Sourav Kothari of ONGC won the gold medal of the individual professional billiards event. In the final, he defeated BPCL player Manan Chandra 3-1.
Kothari was in good form and crafted a break of 61 points in the opening game. He continued the stride to win the second game by 100-30. Although Manan made a good recovery to secure the third game 100-56. In the next game, Sourav returned with his best to craft two back-to-back breaks of 50 and 48 and won the title 3-1.
For the bronze medal fight, Dhruv Sitwala of ONGC ousted Kreishh Gurbaxani of BPCL 2-1. Dhruv initiated with a break of 52 but went down in the second game to step into the decider. Kreishh had a good chance to win the medal but he missed out on a score of 73 and Dhruv posted the medal-winning break of 67 points.
In Non-Professional billiards, Arif Akhtar of IOCL reached the finals of individual billiards defeating Soumen of Oil India 194-84. He will meet Amarish Kamalapuri of IOCL in the final, who defeated his colleague Tasrique A. Haque 141-131 in the semi-finals.
