LAHORE - Samba Bank and D Polo qualified for the subsidiary final of the Lt Gen Shah Rafi Alam Memorial Polo Cup 2020 after registering victories in their respective matches played here at the Lahore Polo Club ground on Thursday.
The match between D Polo and Guard Group/Platinum Homes proved to be a nail-biting encounter and after a tough battle, D Polo emerged as winners by a narrow-margin of 7-6. Abdul Rehman Monnoo was star of the day from the winning side as he hammered a hat-trick while the remaining contribution came from Ahmed Ali Tiwana (a brace) and Lt Col Omer Minhas and Daniyal Sheikh (one goal each). From the losing side, Taimur Ali Malik struck three goals while Amirreza Behboudi hit a brace and Ahmed Bilal Riaz one goal.
D Polo started the match well and thrashed two back-to-back goals to gain 2-0 lead but Guard Group/Platinum Homes bounced back well and hammered a hat-trick to earn 3-2 lead. The second chukker saw D Polo making a good comeback by thrashing three goals against one by Guard Group to make it 5-4. The third and fourth chukkers were evenly poised as both the teams converted one goal each in each chukker, thus D Polo won the thriller by 7-6.
In the match played under American system among Samba Bank, Remount and Imperial Holdings, Samba Bank won both of their two-chukker matches against their respective opponents. In the first two-chukker match, Samba Bank outclassed Imperial Holdings by 8-1 and then outsmarted Remount in the second match by 3-1. In the third two-chukker match, Remount outpaced Imperial Holdings by 7-1.
Today (Friday), two matches will be contested as Master Paints will play against Price Meter.PK at 2:00 pm while Diamond Paints/FG Polo will compete against Barry’s at 3:15 pm. The winners of these two semifinals will earn the place in the main final.