Monday, Nov 24, 2003
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Billiards & Snooker
By V.V. Subrahmanyam
England's Lee Lagan poses with the Arthur Walker Trophy after winning the World billiards championship in Hyderabad on Sunday. — Photo: H. Satish
Playing in his maiden final, the 23-year old Lagan overcame a bad start as India's star performer was literally on song winning the first two games quite comfortably at 151-65 and 152- 21with breaks of 89 in the first and 69 and 65 in the second. As if to remind of what was in store for the rest of the day, Lagan dished out a vintage performance and virtually perfected the art of scoring from the top of the table game. By now a master in this aspect, Lagan never really took any risks and just kept ticking away with useful points. He believed in big breaks from this simple and effective strategy and no wonder he was awarded the Wilson Jones memorial trophy for recording the highest number of century breaks in the championship. And when Lagan wrapped up the next three games 150-16, 151-19, 150-142 in the morning session, things were looking pretty ominous for Geet. And in a way the 42-year-old Geet should blame himself for a very costly mistake that he committed in the fifth game. When all set to clinch it with a break of 137, he erred in potting the simple red in the centre. Quickly to seize on that gift, Lagan ran up an imposing unfinished 150-break on the second visit to not only win it but take loads of confidence into the second session with the psychological 3-2 lead. When the post-lunch session of the best-of-11 games final began, Lagan came up with useful breaks of 73 on the second visit, 36 on the third and a unfinished 39 on the last to wrap up the game at 152-12 and take a handsome 4-2 lead. A stroke of luck in the seventh game gave Geet Sethi the chance to come back into his own as two breaks of 69 and 52 saw Lee Lagan take the score to 149-101 before he missed to pot the red in the long in-off. Capitalising on this, Geet came up with an unfinished break of 49 to clinch the game and narrow down the lead to 3-4. In the eighth game, the Englishman came up with a handsome breaks of 85 and 64 on the second visit to get a decent start even as his opponent failed to pot the long in-off and could score only 21 points on the second visit. Geet was never allowed again to the table with Lee Lagan scoring an unfinished 31 to clinch the game to widen the lead to 5-3. The first seven visits in the next game rarely produced anything special but what helped Geet Sethi to stay in the race was an impressive break of 89, an effort which saw him win the game. Even as the near capacity crowd in the hall were mentally preparing for a dismal outing for Geet, the champion player came up with a brilliant performance in the 10th game with an unfinished break of 117 on the fourth visit. This was the phase when Geet really looked determined to put behind whatever had happened in all the previous games. The potting was impeccable, he was on target with the in-offs and that famous `screw-back' shot was also there for the fans as the Indian wrapped up the game to level the scores and take the issue into the decider. Though Lagan was off with a neat break of 36 on his very first visit, the next seven visits by both of them never really troubled the scorers. Geet gave a glimpse of his class during his small break of 16. He started off with a classic double-cushion canon but soon fumbled badly with a simple long in-off. This lapse saw Lagan respond with a comfortable break of 94 as he revealed his now familiar mastery on top of the table before missing a simple in-off. The expectations were high as Geet walked upto the table with the scoreline reading 29-141. He could score only three points before missing another simple in-off. Lagan with an intelligent and risk-free play clinched the game and the trophy to a thunderous applause from the very appreciative crowd. The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu and Minister for Major Industries K. Vidhyadhara Rao gave away the prizes. Capt. P.V.K.Mohan, president of APBSA, welcomed. Mr. Antony Hull, president of IBSF, informed that the BSFI has offered to host the inaugural edition of the World Cup snooker championship next year.
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