Laxman Rawat outshines Aditya Agrawal to march into title round

Laxman Rawat of Bombay Gymkhana enjoyed a good rolls of the balls and with some consistent perfect potting eased past Aditya Agrawal of Elphinstone CC by a 1-5 margin in a semi-final match of the  ECC All India Open 6-Red Snooker Tournament 2018 which was played at the Elphinstone Cricket Club billiards room.

The cool and calculated Rawat lost the first frame, but bounced back in style by neatly compiling a break of 50 to win the second. Thereafter, Rawat called the shots and was in complete control as he made two more breaks of 34 (3rd frame) and 30 (5th frame) to seal a deserving 8-32, 68-0, 46-10, 43-24, 58-17 and 45-35 victory and a progressed to the final.

In the second semi-final, Mohd. Hissain Khan of Railways brushed aside the challenge from Hindu Gymkhana’s Siddharth Parikh by chugging to a 5-3 win. Parikh showed promise and shared the first six frames with his Railway’s rival Khan, but later went off track and tamely lost the next three frames. Khan who fought well coasted to a 38-6, 23-32, 36-11, 29-34, 1-50, 25-17, 40-13 and 41-0 win and have a shot at the title.

Earlier, Aditya Agrawal playing on home tables recovered brilliantly after training 1-4 to overcome Hasan Badami of Cricket Club of India 5-4 in an absorbing quarter-final contest. After the scores were level at 1-all, Badami won the next three to enjoy a solid 4-1 lead. But, Agrawal showed great character as he clawed his way back and pocketed the subsequent four frames to complete a satisfying 4-41, 53-26, 27-33, 23-43, 17-33, 44-13, 34-9, 38-4 and 41-14 victory to march into the semi-finals.

In another semi-final encounter that went the distance, Laxman Rawat of Bombay Gymkhana played solidly  to sideline Shahbaz Khan also of CCI 5-4 (34-0, 12-50, 13-39, 6-28, 36-17, 62-2, 34-7, 32-41, 40-8) to set up a clash with Agrawal in the last four round.

Siddhrath Parikh of Hindu Gymkhana and Mohd. Hissain Khan of Railway will contest the second semi-final.