Daily Times

LAHORE: FG Team won the Lt Gen Shah Rafi Alam Memorial Polo Cup after defeating Newage-Diamond Paints by 7-3 in the final played at the Lahore Polo Club Ground here on Sunday. It was a team work which helped FG register their title triumph as all of their players coordinated well to pressurize the opponents. Eulogio Celestino, Mir Huzaifa Ahmed and Abbas Mukhtar hammered two goals each for the winning side while Shah Shamyl Alam converted one. Antonino Menard, Mir Shoaib Ahmed and Alman Jalil Azam contributed one goal each for the losing side. FG dominated the match right from the word go as they struck two goals in the first chukker through Eulogio and Abbas to take 2-0 lead. The first goal of the second chukker came from FG when Eulogio converted his second and the team’s third goal to give his side 3-0 lead. Antonino Menard then fired in a fantastic field goal for Newage-Diamond Paints to reduce the margin to 3-1.

FG once again stamped their authority in the third chukker as they slammed two fabulous field goals through Huzaifa and Abbas to further enhance their lead to 5-1. Shoaib then converted a field goal to finish the third chukker at 5-2. FG maintained their supremacy in the fourth and last chukker as well as they didn’t allow their opponents to play freely and score more than one goal, which came from Alman while Shah Shamyl and Huzaifa scored one goal apiece to guide FG to 7-3 victory. Nicholas Pepper and Nicholas Maria Ruiz officiated the final match as field umpires. In the subsidiary final earlier, Team Eighteen defeated Artema Medical by 5-4½. From the winning side, Ahmed Ali Tiwana banged in a brace while Shahnawaz Ayaz Durrani, Saqib Khan Khakwani and Mumtaz Abbasi Niazi scored one goal apiece. From the losing side, who had one and half goals handicap advantage, all the three goals came from Ibrahim Barry. Geffredo Cutinelli supervised the match as field umpires.

Provincial Minister for Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries Muhammad Sibtain Khan graced the final as chief guest while Al-Khair Group Managing Director M Saeed Sheikh and UK Foam CEO Saad Sheikh were guests of honours. Besides a great number of polo enthusiasts, Lahore Polo Club executive committee members Jawad Jameel Malik, Omer Saeed Niazi, Secretary Usman Nasir, members and their families were also present on the occasion.

Published in Daily Times, December 17^th2018.