Mubashir named fourth member of Pakistan squad

KARACHI: Mubashir Raza was preferred over Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir as the fourth member of the Pakistan squad for the IBSF World Snooker Championship 2017 to be staged in Doha, Qatar, next month.

Asjad Iqbal and Mohammad Asif were the automatic qualifiers by virtue of being the top cueists of the country in the latest national ranking chart while young Mohammad Naseem Akhtar had been granted a wild card entry on the basis of his title triumph in the World Under-18 Snooker Championship last month.

Munawwar Hussain Shaikh, President, Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA), informed ‘The News’ here on Saturday that the executive committee didn’t select third-ranked Mohammad Bilal and fourth-ranked Shahid Aftab because of their inconsistent performance in the recent events.

“We selected fifth-ranked Mubashir Raza instead who is young and promising. We also considered sixth-ranked Zulfiqar Qadir who ended as the runner-up of the Jubilee Insurance 3rd Ranking Cup Snooker Championship 2017 the other day,” the PBSA President disclosed.

“Mubashir is in his early 20s and Zulfiqar has crossed 30. So age was also one of the factors taken into consideration which didn’t go in favour of the local cueist despite his terrific performance in the Ranking Cup. Maybe, the situation could have been different if he had won the final,” Munawwar said.

While the quartet of Asjad Iqbal, Mohammad Asif, Naseem Akhtar and Mubashir Raza will be representing Pakistan in the open event of the World Championship, the trio of Mohammad Yousuf, Khurram Hussain Agha and Imran Shahzad has been selected for the masters event.

The PBSA has decided to hold training and conditioning camp for all the seven cueists from November 7 to 16 here at the Legend Snooker Parlour in Gulistan-e-Johar. The squad will then fly to Doha to participate in the World Championships.