Ilyas faces Anthony today for place in boxing quarters

From our correspondent

BIRMINGHAM: Having recorded a knockout victory in his first fight on Saturday night, Pakistan’s young boxer Ilyas Hussain will meet Anthony Shawn Joseph of Trinidad and Tobago in the featherweight (54-75kg) pre-quarter-final of the boxing event of the Commonwealth Games here at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) boxing arena on Monday (today).

The fight will begin at 11:15 PST.

Ilyas, who belongs to Quetta, on Saturday night knocked out Moroke Mokhoto of Lesotho in the second round in the preliminaries. It was Ilyas’s debut fight.

“He is a good fighter and won his debut fight which is a great thing,” Pakistan coach Arshad Hussain told 'The News' here on Sunday.

“His morale is very high. Today in the morning training session I also pointed out his mistakes and I hope he will click in the next stage. I have not seen Ilyas’s opponent Joseph but I am quite confident that it will be a good fight,” said Arshad, a former Olympian and Commonwealth Games medallist.

National boxers Suleman Baloch and Nazeerullah Khan have already been eliminated.

The draw issue of Asian Under-22 Boxing Championship bronze medallist Zohaib Rasheed is yet to be sorted out. His case has been sent to the world boxing governing body and the CWG Federation but an official of Pakistan’s boxing camp told this correspondent that they were waiting for the reply. “We have not received any reply as yet,” the official said.