Pakistan crash ­out with shock loss to Japan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan went tumbling out of the 20th Asian Squash Team Championship under way in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) with a shocking 1-2 defeat against lower ranked Japan team Thursday.

The defeat against Japan came on the heels of a narrow loss against India on Wednesday.

Nasir Iqbal turned out to be the only player to have won his matches against Japan and also against India.

On Thursday, Nasir Iqbal defeated Japan No 2 Tomotaka Endo 11-9, 11-9, 11-7. Ryosei Kobayashi (Japan) stunned Tayyab Aslam 11-6, 10-12, 13-11, 11-3 while Japan No 3 Ryunosuke Tsukue won in straight sets against Amaad Fareed 12-10, 11-7 and 11-6.

Pakistan will now play Korea for positional matches today (Friday), depending on the fitness of Nasir Iqbal and Tayyab Aslam.

On Wednesday Tayyab Aslam went down fighting in a five-game thriller against world No 15 Saurav Ghosal as Pakistan lost a keenly awaited match against India 1-2.

Saurav Ghosal came back from two games down to beat Tayyab Aslam 9-11, 7-11, 11-1, 11-7, 11-8 after the tie was locked 1-1.

Asim Khan started the proceedings rather meekly against Ramit Tandon who won 11-5, 11-9, 14-12. It was then left to courageous Nasir Iqbal to bring back Pakistan in contention with a resounding 9-11, 13-11, 11-8, 11-7 win against Mahesh Mangaonkar.

All was left on Tayyab to carry Pakistan home against in-from much higher-ranked Indian player. Tayyab showed exceptional abilities to engage his opponent in long rallies and make him struggle for each point.

The world No 47 Pakistani player snatched two games against world No 15 before leaving the third one to concentrate fully on the fourth. Both were seen playing neck and neck squash in the fourth and fifth with Tayyab even had an upper hand in the third.

However, the 34-year old Indian who is even senior to two former Pakistani players Aamir Atlas and Farhan Mehboob put all his experience into play to get clear in the last two games 11-7, 11-8 to almost ensure top position for his team in the Pool A.