CALCUTTA, JAN 4: Nalin Patel and Devender Joshi continued to march ahead in the National Billiards Championships, winning their matches easily on the second day. Joshi notched up two century breaks to defeat Orissa's Gautam Sahoo 880-403. Joshi's 38th visit fetched him 120 points.After earning 71 in the 41st, he came up with another big break of 110 in the 48th. Although Patel could not cross the three-figure mark in a single visit, he amassed 645 with breaks of 79, 87 and 91. His opponent Shakeel Ahmed (WB) made a fine visit of 79 on the 12th, but ended with an aggregate of 341.
Arun Agarwal too got a century break in his 23rd visit. Aided by two more over-fifty breaks, Agarwal defeated KK Khanna (J&K) 763-268. Later, Agarwal came up with another century break to defeat Alok Kumar 739-530. It turned out to be one of the better matches of the day with Agarwal having visits of 97, 78 and 75 in addition to the 177 which he earned in his 14th visit. Alok Kumar too had visits of 83 and 84. Among the other
winners, B Bhaskar of Karnataka got four big breaks of 78, 96, 72, 77 in his 748-297 win over Ashok Kumar (TN). ME Jokhi had one break of 85 in his victory (667-318) over N Subha Rao of Andhra Pradesh. Meanwhile, Sonic Multani did not turn up even on the second day and the organisers informed that he will be barred from competing in the snooker events too, which commence immediately after billiards gets over.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
