INCHEON: Despite Pakistan’s thrilling hockey triumph over India, there was little joy elsewhere at the Asian Games with the only other highlight on Thursday being the women’s cricket team’s march to the final and swimmer Mohammad Saad winning his heats.

Nida Dar claimed four wickets as defending champions Pakistan hammered minnows China by nine wickets in their semi-final at the Yeonhui Cricket Ground.

The 27-year-old Nida grabbed 4-7 as China crashed to 37 all out in 19 overs before Pakistan reached the target in a mere eight overs for the loss of a wicket to set up a final against Bangladesh.

Bangladesh beat Sri Lanka by 25 runs to reach Friday’s final and Pakistan captain Sana Mir was confident about her team’s chances.

“We’re ready to defend our gold medal,” Sana told reporters. “Our preparations for the Games were good because we toured Austalia and we’re looking forward to retaining our title.”

At the Munhak Park Tae-hwan Aquatics Centre, Saad stormed to victory in the 100m freestyle heat, posting a time of 58.49 seconds, 0.23 ahead of Nepal’s Sirish Gurung.

Saad, however, was unable to qualify for the final with the cut-off qualification time set at 50.86 seconds. It was a similar story for Saad in the four-man 50m butterfly heat earlier where he won in 28.06 seconds.

Also in the pool, Anushe Dinyar finished fifth out in her 50m breaststroke heat, a massive 6.98 seconds behind heat winner Kanako Watanabe of Japan (31.81).

Other disappointments followed soon after with the tennis, badminton and men’s squash teams crashing out.

Pakistan’s top-ranked tennis player Aqeel Khan lost 0-6, 1-6 to Taiwan’s world No 43 Lu Yen-hsun in the second round of the individual event before his team-mate Mohammad Abid followed soon after, crashing to a 2-6, 0-6 defeat at the hands of Uzbek Sanjar Fayzieb.

The duo then combined to take part in the men’s doubles event but lost in the first round to China’s Maoxin Gong and Li Zhe 6-3, 6-1.

On the women’s side, Sara Mansoor suffered a double-bagel loss to Uzbekistan’s Nigina Abduraimova in her first-round match.

The badminton team endured similar fate with all of its members falling on the sixth day of competition at the Games.

Umer Zeeshan and Mohammad Irfan Saeed Bhatti lost 12-21, 10-21 to the Japanese duo of Kenichi Hayakawa and Endo Hiroyuki, ranked third in the world, in their round-of-16 match.

Pakistan’s Mohammad Saad (L) reacts after his first place in a heat for the men’s 100m freestyle event at the Munhak Park Tae-h wan Aquatics Centre.—AFP

World No. 1 Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia then eased past Umer 21-14, 21-6 to reach the last 16 in the singles event while Irfan lost 5-21, 16-21 to Singapore’s Zi Liang Derek Wong.

Women players didn’t fare any better at the Gyeyang Gymnasium with Palwasha Bashir losing out to Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand in her round-of-16 match while she and Irfan teamed up in the mixed doubles match, only to lose 2-0 to Indonesians Praveen Jordan and Debby Susanto.

Umer and Mahnoor Shahid, meanwhile, lost 2-0 to Taiwan’s Liao Min Chun and Chen Hsiao Huan in the other round-of-32 mixed doubles match.

HOPES SQUASHED

While Pakistan didn’t have any medal aspirations from the badminton and tennis teams, the men’s squash team went into the 17th edition of the continent’s Olympic-size Games as defending champions.

Amid widespread shock and disbelief at the Yeorumul Squash Courts, Pakistan’s reign as Asian Games’ gold medallists came to an end on Thursday when they suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Kuwait — their second successive defeat in pool ‘A’ putting them out of semi-final contention.

Havind defeated Qatar and South Korea in their opening two matches, Pakistan went into their final pool match on the back of a 2-1 defeat by Hong Kong.

But despite Farhan Zaman giving them the lead with a 11-7, 11-7, 8-11, 11-4 victory over Ammar Altamimi, Danish Atlas Khan and Nasir Iqbal lost to Al Alramezi and Abdullah Almezayen respectively as Pakistan finished behind Hong Kong and Kuwait in their pool.

Elsewhere at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range, veteran Pakistan marksman Ayaz Tahir finished 38th in 50m rifle prone qualification.

Ayaz, who has previously represented Pakistan at several Asian Games and had won a bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, mustered a total of 609.2 points in seven rounds in the pack of 52 shooters.

He collected his best of 104.3 in the final round after scoring 100.5, 99.6, 101.1, 101.3, 102.4 in the first five rounds. His team-mate Umar Siddique ended 41st with a total of 608.9 after rounds of 99.4, 102.7, 101.9, 102.0, 102.3 and 100.6.

Haroon Shaukat finished sixth in the 105 kg weightlifting Group ‘B’ event after lifting a total of 312 kg at Moonlight Festival Garden while his compatriot Mohammad Shakeel finished sixth in both his heats of the men’s keirin event at the velodrome.

Boxer Aamir Khan, however, restored some of Pakistan’s battered pride by advancing to the last 16 round in the 64kg welterweight category at the boxing event by outpointing his Jordanian opponent Seif Emad Issa.

In a close contest, Aamir won all three rounds 10-9 to advance at the Seonhak Gymnasium, joining compatriots Nadir Baloch and Ahmed Ali in the second round after both won their opening bouts on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2014