ECC ‘Elfies Hornets’ (Elphinstone Cricket Club) advanced  to the pre-quarter-final round of the Otters Club-Mumbai Snooker League (MSL) — 2017, conducted by the Billiards and Snooker Association of Maharashtra (BSAM).

Elfies Hornets defeated NSCI Youngsters by a comfortable 3-0 margin in a round of 32 match, played at the Otters Club, Bandra.

ECC’s captain and seasoned cueist Farhad Tengra and Pramod Pol (+23 handicap) provided their team with a winning start as they overcame the NSCI duo of Sagar Desai and Abhishek Bajaj (+29) by 77-68 points. Pol played a key role as he produced a break of 38 which helped to win the frame and he was later named winner of the ‘Player of the Match’ award. Later, Rushab Gohil (+55) sidelined Abhishek Bajaj (+30) winning by a distance at 100-62 points in the second frame before Vilas Upsham managed to snatch a tight 116-109 win over Jay Shroff to close out the match in favour of Elfies Hornets.

Meanwhile, Cricket Club of India teams had mixed fortunes in the pre-quarter-final round of matches.

Former champions CCI ‘Snooker Kings’ charged into the quarter-finals with a fluent 3-0 win against the formidable CG ‘Gladiators’ (Chembur Gymkhana).

On the adjacent table, CCI ‘Young Guns’ went down fighting to fancied KG ‘Dirty Half Dozen’ (Khar Gymkhana) by 1-3 frame scores in the most exciting match which witnessed quite a number of decent breaks.

Raj Khandwala (+40) of CCI compiled runs of 42 and 32 in winning the first frame against Ishpreet Chadha (+5) by 113-16 points to give CCI the lead but, then Khar Gymkhana’s celebrated cueist, Yasin Merchant (scratch), a former two-time Asian snooker champion had two sizeable break of 44 and 41 as he tamed Pranav Todi (+50) 93-55 to level the frame scores at 1-all. Later, KG’s doubles pair of Sparsh Pherwani and Kreish Gurbaxani (+23) combined nicely with the latter rolling a break of 40 as they went on to defeat the CCI doubles combo of Krish and Eashan Bajaj (+36) 78-48. Nikhil Saigal (+25) sealed things up for Khar Gymkhana when he pulled off a 99-87 win against Raj Khandwala in the fourth frame. Kreish was declared as the ‘Player of the Match’.