Asian Volleyball Championship: Pakistan Team Lose To Australia
LAHORE (APP): Pakistan suffered a narrow 3-2 defeat at the hands of Australia in the quarter finals of the Asian senior men’s volleyball championship in Tehran on Thursday.
It was a very close fight as Pakistan won the first two sets 23-21, 23-21 but surprisingly went down in the remaining part of the game, said the information made available to APP here by the Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF). After taking early supremacy in the encounter, Pakistan team failed to maintain consistency and paid the price by losing the match.
After being 2-2 as Australia took the third and fourth sets, Pakistan made grand recovery to put up resolute fight in the fifth side and put a new life in the match as the score was eqailised at 13-13.
At this stage one attack of Zaheer went out, otherwise, it would have been game point as under the rules, 5th set finished at 15 points whereas other sets have to finish when any team wins 25 points 1st.
After winning the first two sets, reception of service from Australia was not taken well by the Pakistani players ,letting the opponents to grab points and eventually the following two sets.
But indeed it was a good performance on part of Pakistan team against one of the top notch of Asia and it caused troublesome time for the Australian side in the match.
Earlier, Australia had defeated Iran the world number five in a pool match with a set score of 3-1.
Meanwhile a spokesman of the PVF said that Pakistan team still needs to have confidence to win big matches. This required more international matches but shortage of finances are a great hindrance in the way, as PVF got Rs.3 million from Pakistan Sports Board, and this participation has cost the Federation approx Rs 5 million. The Federation has yet to pay for the tickets.
The contract of the South Korean Coach Kim, who has done a great job is being finished now, as the Federation does not have money to pay him any more and his services are most needed for South Asian Games in December, 2019 at Nepal, and for Olympic Qualification Tournament in China in January, 2020, as top 8 teams of this tournament have qualified for Olympic qualification, he added.
He said Pakistan volleyball has the potential to win in Asia and at World level, as country is full of talent.
