Ace cueist Pankaj Advani made a very brief appearance, scored 11 points to enable ONGC beat BPCL hands down in the final of the 14th PSPB inter-unit billiards and snooker tournament. It was ONGC’s 12th billiards team title win.
In a short-format single game set at 200 points, ONGC won the first two games 200-100 through Rupesh Shah against S. Shrikrishna and 200-111 through Alok Kumar against Manan Chandra.
But the overall match points difference was 189 (400-211). “Before Pankaj (Advani) started the third match for ONGC, the difference was 11 points and he had to score that,” said Director of the tournament C. Ravindranath.
The clash between the two strong teams sparked plenty of chatter as Shah and S. Shrikrishna positioned themselves for a potential tussle in the billiards room of the PYC Hindu Gymkhana on Wednesday. Team members from either side began dissecting Shah and Shrikrishna’s game by every shot and the first hint of ONGC gaining the upper hand emerged as Shah gathered his wits to post an early break of 77.
The results (Team Billiards) final: ONGC bt BPCL 3-0 (Rupesh Shah bt S. Shrikrishna 200 (77)-100; Alok Kumar bt Manan Chandra 200 (83)-111; Pankaj Advani 11 points v Devendra Joshi 5. 3rd-4th Place: Indian Oil bt GAIL 2-1 (Brijesh Damani lost to Ishpreet Chadda 37-200; Dhvaj Haria bt Ashutosh Padhy 200-29; Aditya Mehta bt Ashok Yadav 200-34).
Team snooker: (semifinals): ONGC bt BPCL 4-0 (Pankaj Advani bt Manan Chandra 2-0 (96(86)-23, 100(100)-12; Sourav Kothari bt Shahbaz Khan 2-0 (52-41, 69(65)-47); Indian Oil bt GAIL 4-2 by virtue of being the team to win four frames in a match set to seven: Laxman Rawat bt Ashok Kumar 2-0 (92-2, 62-7); Brijesh Damani vs Asutosh Padhy 1-1 (92-13, 4-74), Aditya Mehta vs Ishpreet Singh Chadha 1-1 (50-58, 69-42).
Quarterfinals: GAIL bt NRL 2-0 (Ashutosh Padhy bt Durlove Bora 82-17, 77-12; Ishpreet Chadda bt Swapnav Datta 77-12, 82-02); Indian Oil bt Oil India 2-0 (Aditya Mehta bt J. Phookan 119 (51,67)-00, 75-10; Laxman Rawat bt Rudra Datta 95-4, 81-6).
