Pak cueists, officials leave for Doha today

KARACHI: Pakistan’s 10-member contingent will be flying out of Karachi on Friday (today) to take part in the IBSF World Snooker Championships 2017 in Doha, Qatar.
According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Thursday, the Pakistan squad will be leaving for Doha in the early hours of Friday to reach there in time for the inauguration ceremony of the World Championships to be held later today.
The 2017 World Championships for Men, Women and Masters, being organised simultaneously by the International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF), will continue until November 27.
Asjad Iqbal, Mohammad Asif, Mubashir Raza and Naseem Akhtar will be representing Pakistan in the Men’s event, while Mohammad Yousuf, Imran Shahzad and Khurram Hussain Agha will be the three participating cueists from Pakistan in the Masters event.
Shabbir Hussain Daruwala and Naved Kapadia will be the two officiating referees from Pakistan to be deputed during the World Championships.
PBSA president Munawwar Hussain Shaikh will be representing the country as delegate in the IBSF’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held on November 24. The conditioning and training camp for the seven members of the Pakistan squad concluded here at the Legend Snooker Parlour in Gulistan-e-Johar on Thursday.
Naveed Kapadia, who supervised the camp training for 10 days, informed ‘The News’ that all the seven cueists were fully fit and appeared in top form. “We had a couple of sessions of three hours each on daily basis on all 10 days and the cueists displayed great enthusiasm,” the camp commandant stated.
Asjad and Asif were the automatic qualifiers for the open event of the World Championships by virtue of being the top cueists of the country in the latest national ranking chart. Young Naseem has been granted wild card entry on the basis of his title triumph in the World Under-18 Snooker Championship last month.
The PBSA Executive Committee preferred fifth-ranked Mubashir Raza, in his early 20s, as the fourth member of the squad, ahead of third-ranked Mohammad Bilal, fourth-ranked Shahid Aftab and sixth-ranked Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir, who ended as the runner-up in the recently concluded Jubilee Insurance 3rd Ranking Cup Snooker Championship 2017.