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Indian women, Pakistani men lift bridge trophy

Wed, 06/01/2011 - 14:19
Chennai, Jun 1 (IBNS): Pakistan rose to the occasion and lifted the  Zakaria Adamjee Memorial trophy as they emerged champions in the open category for men in the 16th Bridge Federation of Asia and Middle East (BFAME) Bridge championship after a gap of eleven years.

They defeated India by 22 International Match Points (IMPs) on the concluding day of the meet here Wednesday.

At the end of the three sessions of the final, Pakistan scored a total of  127 IMPs against 105 by India.

The  hosts, however, had some satisfaction as true to the expectation their women squad consisting of Rita Choksi, Bharati Dey, Yvette Singapuri, Prabha Kunder, Aparna Sain and Geeta Lakhani lived up to the  expectation and regained the Vinodini Goenka Memorial trophy.

It is the sign of supremacy in the women’s category of the  tournament, after 2005, beating Jordan  by  103 IMPs.

India tallied a total of 193 IMPs against 90 by Jordan.

With this victory, Indian eves thus took a sweet revenge of their defeat at the hands of Jordan in BFAME final in 2007.

All the four above teams have already qualified for the next  World Championship that will be held in Netherlands during  Oct this year.

Commenting on their victory , manager cum non playing captain of  Pakistan’s men team Tariq Rasheed Khan said, “ We are very happy to regain the trophy after eleven years by defeating India. It’s a tremendous achievement.”

“This victory will augur well for bridge in Pakistan and will definitely help to popularize the game further in the country,” he said.  

Non-playing captain of Indian men’s team Sudhir  Kumar Agarwal, commented on their defeat: “Our players made silly mistakes both in bidding and defence.“

He also complimented Pakistan team and said, “Pakistan team played well. They were able to take advantage of  India’s  mistakes”.

After defeating Pakistan twice in the league stage, Indian men, who won the BFAME Open category title during the last four championships, faltered at the crucial stage and surrendered this time to their traditional rivals without putting up much fight.

Indian men were trailing by 26-58 margin at the end of the first session of the final on Tuesday and continued to be bogged down with their poor form and fared badly in the second session this morning  only and could score  21 IMPs against 50 by Pakistan.

Though Indian side  improved their performance considerably in the third session collecting 59 IMPs against 27 IMPs by Pakistan, that was not enough to achieve their goal.

Unlike the men, Indian women remained steady and clinched the issue in their favour by winning the second and third sessions of the final clash by 51-34 and 59-27 margin respectively.


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