While Pakistan’s pride Mohammad Asif reached pinnacle of his career on Dec 2, 2012 at Bulgarian capital Sofia, the year 2014 revolves around Mohammad Sajjad as far as the game of snooker is concerned, a quick glance on the gone by year reveals.

Modest Sajjad, who comes from a lower middle class family of Sargodha, followed suit becoming the fourth Pakistani cueist to reach international Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) world amateur snooker championship final at Bangalore at the year end on Nov 29 but slightly fell short to emulate the feat of former world amateur champions veteran Mohammad Yousuf and Asif.

In the end, Sajjad lost the epic final to virtually 14-year-old Chinese Yan Bingtao who was half of former’s age 7-8. Never-say-die Chinese became the youngest-ever cueist to win the world title. He was home 71-59, 16-81, 22-75, 67-53, 77-13, 4-93, 63-38, 0-86, 76-9, 70-37, 65-72, 38-76, 16-107, 72-21, 61-15.

National champion Asif Toba and Hamza Akbar also featured in the IBSF event at Bangalore.

Earlier, the Asif-Sajjad pair grabbed two silver medals — both in team event — in the world and Asian competitions held at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt and Karachi, respectively.

In Egyptian city, the defending champion pair lost 3-5 to Hong Kong One in the final in June and suffered 1-2 loss to holders India ‘A’ in the title clash at home in Aug.

Iran’s Amir Sarkosh landed the Asian 6-Reds title by getting the better of Thailand’s Boonyarit Kaettikun 7-6 in the gruelling final that preceded the regional team event. Amir had beaten Sajjad 6-4 in quarter-final and Hamza 6-5 in the semis.

Fujairah was the first destination of Pakistani trio Mohammad Asif Toba, Asjad Iqbal and Hamza Akbar, who competed in the 30th Asian Snooker Championship. All of them could not go beyond last eight. Toba lost in quarters, Asjad in last-16 and Hamza in last-32. Malaysian Thor Chuan Leong annexed the Asian crown.

Former national champion Hamza and Sajjad also figured in the inaugural Qatar Academy 6-Reds snooker championship at Doha in Oct where the former lost to Iran’s Soheil Vahedi in semi-final while the latter made exit in last eight.

On the domestic front, Sajjad turned out to be the most successful player winning two of the three rankings events held during the year.

He handed 8-5 defeat to former Pakistan No 1 Imran Shehzad to win the NBP title in Sept and maintained his ascendancy brushing aside Rambel Gul 8-3 to land the third ranking title in Dec.

Earlier, Mohammad Asif (Toba) dethroned holder Hamza 8-5 in the final to annex the national crown in March.

The national junior championship ended in a blaze of glory for talented and reigning Asian junior silver medallist at Indore, Mohammad Majid Ali, who accounted for Haris Nadeem 6-1 in the final held in Feb.

The quartet of Majid, Haris, Hamza and Faheem travelled to Fujairah to compete in the world under-21 event while the quartet of Majid, Haris, Hamza and Amir Tariq represented Pakistan in 15th Asian under-21 event at Mohali, Chundigarh, in June..

The Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) president Alamgir Shaikh was elected senior vice-president of the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports (ACBS) during the annual general body meeting held in Fujairah on the sidelines of Asian meet.

The entire panel, including the PBSF chief, was elected unopposed as no other candidate file nomination papers by the deadline. The government also announced Pride of Performance for Asif on Aug 14 for his world cup feat. He becomes the second cueist after Yousuf to get the award.

The cueists, however, awaits their monetary rewards from government and further delay may affect country’s medal hopes in future.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2015

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