LAHORE — Salam Polo and Newage Cables/Master Paints registered victories in the Coca-Cola Lahore Open Polo Championship 2022 matches played here at the Lahore Polo Club on Wednesday.
The heroics of Raja Arslan Najeeb and Nicolas Ruiz Guinazu helped Salam Polo overwhelm Guard Rice by a huge margin of 8-2. Both the players – Nicolas Ruiz and Raja Arslan – were in superb form and contributed with four and three goals respectively in their team’s tally. Besides these two, Hashim Kamal also played a key role in his team’s triumph by converting a fantastic field goal.
On the other hand, no impressive show was witnessed from the players of Guard Rice as only Bilal Haye, who was playing in place of Saqib Khakwani, could pump in a brace while other players failed to contribute a single goal. Jhon Fisher and Shah Shamyl Alam officiated the match as field umpires. Newage Cables/Master Paints faced tough resistance from Master Paints Black before winning the nail-biting encounter of the day by 7-6, thanks to their hero Juan Cruz Greguol.
The foreign player – Juan Cruz Greguol – made the major contribution from the Newage Cables/Master Paints by playing excellent polo with both mallet and polo pony and smashing in superb six goals. Alman Jalil Azam struck the remaining goal from the winning team. On the other hand, Manuel Carranza did play his best polo and hammered an impressive hat-trick, and was ably assisted by phenomenal Syed Aun Mohammad Rizvi and Sufi Mohammad Amir, who hammered two and one goal respectively but they fell short of just one goal to equalize the score, thus losing the crucial match by 6-7. Jhon Fisher and Tomas Marin Moreno supervised the match as field umpires.
Two more matches of the prestigious two-week eight-goal tournament will be played today (Thursday) here at the Lahore Polo Club. The first encounter will be contested between Zacky Farms/Kala Bagh and Diamond Paints/Sheikhoo Steel at 1:30 pm while the second match of the day will be played between Remounts and Platinum Homes at 2:30 pm.
