LPC LAHORE: Master Paints Black and Army registered won the Royal Marketing Pakistan Polo Cup 2018 opening matches played here at the Lahore Polo Club (LPC) ground on Monday.
Hissam Ali Hyder struck superb goals in Master Paints Black’s thumping 9-4 victory over Olympia Chemical in the inaugural encounter of the day. Besides Hissam’s double hat-trick, one goal each was contributed by his teammates Bilal Haye, Sufi M Amir and Sufi Haroon. From Olympia Chemical, Ahmed Nawaz Tiwana scored a brace while Abdul Rehman Monnoo and Ahmed Ali Tiwana contributed one goal apiece.
In the high-voltage first chukker, Master Paints Black struck three goals through Bilal Haye, Sufi Haroon and Sufi Amir to take 3-0 lead while Olympia Chemical struck one through Abdul Rehman Monnoo to reduce the margin to 3-1. Olympia Chemical bounced back in the second chukker and banged in a brace through Ahmed Ali and Ahmed Nawaz to level the score at 3-3. In the dying moments of the second chukker, Hissam fired a fantastic field goal to give Master Paints 4-3 edge.
High-flying Hissam then played outstanding polo and hammered a brace to strengthen his team’s lead to 6-3. Ahmed Nawaz then struck one more for Olympia to reduce the gap to 6-4. In the fourth and last chukker, Hissam fully dominated and fired a fabulous hat-trick to give his team unbeatable 9-4 lead, which remained intact till the end and Master Paints emerged as winners.
Hamza Mawaz Khan and Edward Bannireve supervised the match as field umpires.
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Half goal handicap advantage came out to rescue Army and helped them beat BBJ Pipes by 3½-3 in the second match of the opening day. Haris Haroon, Luis Mighal Duggan and Omer Minhas converted one goal each for Army while Ahmed Zubair Butt, Shah Shamyl Alam and Geoffredo hit one goal each for BBJ Pipes.
The first chukker was evenly poised as one goal each was scored by both the sides. From Army, Haris Haroon converted a field goal while Ahmed Zubair Butt slammed in one for BBJ Pipes to finish the chukker at 1-1. The second chukker was identical to the first one, as Army struck one through Luis Mighal to make it 2-1 but BBJ Pipes’ Shah Shamyl slammed in one to draw the score at 2-2.
No goal was scored in the third chukker while the fourth and last chukker once again saw both the teams scoring one goal each to finish the match at 3-3. In the end, the half goal handicap advantage made the difference and helped Army win the match 3½-3.
Saqib Khan Khakwani and Raja Arslan Najeeb were the field umpires.
On Tuesday, the only match will be contested between Diamond Paints and Master Paints/EfU Insurance at 12:00 pm.
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