KARACHI, June 8: The Pakistan-India snooker challenge 2005 begins on Thursday afternoon at the Karachi Club. This will be the third time that these two teams will be matching their skill against each other. In 2003 Pakistan won the first series in Karachi, but lost to their Indian counterparts the following year at Chandigarh.

Now tied at 1-1, the ongoing series promises to be a very interesting affair with Pakistan being represented by Naveen Perwani (captain), Mohammad Yousuf, Saleh Mohammad and Imran Shehzad.

The Indians will be represented by the reigning Asian snooker champion Alok Kumar, teenager Pankaj Advani, former world snooker champion and two world titles in billiards, Manan Chandra and Mahendra Joshi, a former Asian billiards champion.

Surprisingly India’s most experienced cueist and former captain Yasin Merchant, a two time Asian champion, failed to qualify for this series.

On each day seven events will be held. The two doubles matches will be of one frame and will carry one point each.

This will be followed by the four singles matches where three frames will be played in each singles, with one point earned for every frame won. Then follows the Lucky Seven, where one player from each team will be nominated to play one frame with the winner winning three points.

One bonus point will be awarded for breaks of 50 to 99 and two bonus points will be awarded for a century break.

At the start of the day each team captain will be presented with an entry card to be filled as per the format indicated except for the lucky seven, where the two players will be nominated by their respective teams. No player can play the lucky seven twice.

The referee will then announce the names of the players as per the sequence and play will begin.

The respective points earned by each team will be put on the main board after each frame and subsequently the total points earned on each day will be carried forward to the next day and the day after. The three-day tournament ends on Saturday, June 11.

The series will comprise of a total of 45 frames to be played over the three days.

The team scoring the highest number of points will be declared the winners. In case of a tie, the respective captains will nominate their best player to decide the fate of their team by way of a Single Sudden Death frame.

The winning team will be awarded Rs200,000, while the runners-up will have to be satisfied with Rs100,000.

The Indian Manager Michael Ferreria, a living legend, who still has two billiard records to be broken in the Ripley’s Book of Records, scoring 1149 points on the trot in the Indian National championship against Subash Agrawala and an unfinished 962 points on a time limit against Bunny Dalmia, said that both teams had plenty of talent, but predicted that India held the upper hand and would beat Pakistan.

He said that he and the team were happy to be back in Pakistan, where they felt always at ease by the warmth and friendship extended by their Pakistani brethren.

When asked about Saleh, Ferreria said that Saleh was a cueist oozing with talent and how till today he has not yet bagged a world or even an Asian championship is absolutely mind-boggling.

The closest that Saleh reached in bagging a world crown was in the 2003 championship held in China when the Pakistan cueist reached the final, being the only unbeaten player in the qualifying and knock out rounds to reach the final.

Sadly however, when installed as the firm favourite to win the title Saleh stumbled at the last hurdle losing to Indian teenager Pankaj Advani 11-6 in the final.

Ferreria went on to say that India now had a string of promising youngsters in the fold, stating that the absence of Yasin Merchant will prove his point and added that Adiaya Mehta, a 19-year-old lad was very unlucky not to have been in the squad.