Bhaskar cruises, Arun Agrawal falters

By Geet Sethi

CHRISTCHURCH, SEPT. 13. With the top six seeds having a rest on the third day of the Rockpool IBSF World billiards championship, the limelight was on India's B. Bhaskar and Arun Agrawal, though for contrasting reasons. While Bhaskar cruised to a 1411-776 victory after trailing by a few points at the half way stage of the four- hour contest, Arun Agrawal went down by a mere six points to New Zealand's Wayne Carey. Alok Kumar, Manoj Kothari and Dhruv Sitwala all won their respective encounters and seem to be in line for qualifying from their respective groups.

The athletic Bhaskar, winner of a bronze medal in the doubles billiards event in the last Asian Games has been struggling to rediscover the form, which catapulted him into the top rankings at the domestic level. Additional responsibility in the family silk business in Bangalore and other domestic priorities had somehow shifted his focus from the game in the last three years. But he seems to be determined to make a comeback.

On Thursday he gave the first indication of his intentions with a carefully compiled break of 346, which also happens to be his highest tournament effort. However, there is still some concern about his consistency and lack of concentration. Other than the 346, his play was strewn with too many errors both in positional play and in easy missed shots, a clear indication of wavering concentration and lack of application.

Bhaskar is extremely talented and one has hope that he could evolve into a top-notch cueist, whom the country could be proud of. But he will need to discipline himself to improve his concentration levels and eliminate his Achilles Heel of missing too many easy shots.

Arun Agrawal's most memorable victory has been over yours truly in the 2000 World professional billiards championship. He had exhibited great fighting instincts and ability to keep his composure in compiling a superb 53 break to beat me by one point in a game of 1000 points. However, since then he has failed to live up to his own expectations and perhaps the hopes of others.

Here he paid the penalty for not double baulking his opponent towards the last stages of his four hour contest. And his opponent Wayne Carrey, 13-time Auckland billiards champion played a great end game to win by six. This could perhaps be defined as one of the low points in Arun Agrwala's billiards career. With Malta's Paul Mifsud as the top seed in this group, Arun will now need to beat Mifsud or hope that Wayne Carrey loses to some other player in the group, to have any hopes of qualifying for the knockout stage from this group.

That he has put himself under severe pressure would be an understatement. That he is capable of withstanding that pressure is something he has already proved in the past. The next few days will reveal whether he is successful in making it to the last 16 phase of the championship.

Alok Kumar, the fiery Punjabi from Mandi Gobindghar performed with great distinction to carve a fluent 1968-653 victory over Gary Oliver. Consistency was his trademark in this evening's contest breaks of 176, 126, 100, 135, 176 & 134 revealing his scoring ability and focused approach.

Kumar is intrinsically a snooker player but uses his potting expertise to recover whenever he is out of position. His break building is centered around the red spot and even though he finds it hard to sustain position while playing top of the table his consistency with the three figure efforts keeps the scoreboard ticking at a healthy pace.

A word about Dhruv Sitwala; the 28-year-old started playing only in 1993 but in eight years has achieved the distinction of compiling a 453 practise break. By winning his second successive match on Thursday by compiling a double hundred on Wednesday and another century on Thursday, he is another youngster who keeps alive the hope that India's billiards is in good hands. Bhaskar, Sitwala, Vishal Madan and Bangalore's Pankaj Advani are Indian billiards' future. And given their dedication, willingness to learn and work hard, they will one day conquer the world.

The results: Wayne Carrey 882 bt Arun Agrawal 876, Manoj Kothari 1275 bt Vishal Madan 813, Joe Minici (Aus) 1250 (110, 157) bt John Hartley (Eng) 966, Alok Kumar 1968 (176, 126, 100, 135, 176, 134) bt Gary Oliver 653, B. Bhaskar 1411 (346) bt Tim Walters 776, Dhruv Sitwala 1292 (111) bt Joe Ifa 570, Frank Humphries (Aus) 1316 bt Keith Taylor 443.

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