National Polo championship

Master, Diamond Paints/Newage victorious

By Our correspondent

LAHORE: Master Paints Black and Diamond Paints/Newage won the opening matches of the International Steels National Open Polo Championship for Quaid-i-Azam Gold Cup 2019 played here at Lahore Polo Club ground on Wednesday.

In the first match of the day, Master Paints Black trounced BBJ Pipes by 10-2. Master Paints Black were off to flying start as they dominated the match right from the word go by scoring a brace through Matias and Raja Temur to take 2-0 lead. Raja Temur and Ahmed Ali then added one goal more in the tally to enhance their lead to 4-0. Master Paints Black continued their dominance in the third chukker as well as they hammered a hat-trick - two by Matias and one by Ahmed Ali - to enhance their lead to 7-0.

The fourth chukker saw both the teams scoring one goal each to make it 8-1. Ahmed Ali converted one for Master Paints Black and Mumtaz Abbas one for BBJ Pipes.

In the fifth and last chukker, Master Paints Black added two more goals through Matias in their tally to stretch their lead 10-1 while Nicolas converted one for BBJ Pipes to finish the match at 10-2. Nicolas Scortichini and Martin Fewster supervised the match as field umpires while Shah Qublai Alam was match referee. In the second match of the day, Diamond Paints/Newage came from behind to win the match by a close margin of 8-7 against Barry’s.

Salvador Ulloa and Hissam Ali Hyder emerged as joint heroes for Diamond Paints/Newage as they fired in fantastic four goals each to guide their team to victory while from the losing side, Bautista Bayuger hammered double hat-trick and Raja Samiullah contributed one but their efforts were futile in the end when their side lost the match by just one-goal margin of 7-8. Barry’s scored the opening goal of the match through Bautista to take 1-0 lead. But Diamond Paints/Newage fought back well and banged in a brace through Salvador to get back 2-1 lead. The second chukker was dominated fully by Diamond Paints/Newage as they hammered a hat-trick to stretch their lead to 5-1. Hissam converted two goals and Salvador one for the winning side. The only of the thrid chukker came from Barry’s when Bautista fired in a field goal to reduce the margin to 5-2. In the fourth chukker, Barry’s came from behind to score fabulous four goals to pull back 6-5 lead. Bautista hammered a hat-trick and Raja Sami struck one. In the fifth and last chukker, Barry’s added one more in their tally to enhance their lead to 7-5. Diamond Paints/Newage then bounced back in style and hammered a hat-trick to win the match by 8-7. Hissam Hyder struck two and Salvador one goal. Nicolas Scortichini and Martin Fewster were field umpires and Shah Qublai Alam match referee.