Brunei force a 26 all draw against Maldives

Yasaratne Gamage

Debutant Brunei held Maldives to a 26 all draw in the last match on the opening day of the 8th Asian Netball Championships at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium on Saturday. It was a considerable achievement from Brunei in their first international appearance against experienced Maldives.

The game started with Maldives leading the first quarter by 8-7. In the second session Brunei came strongly to the game and finished with a three goal lead , Brunei eight and Maldives five.

The other two quarters saw Maldives taking lead, 7-6 and 6-5 which was not sufficient for them to defeat their opponents. The match ended 26 goals for both teams. Brenei S B Jaul collected eight goals in 11 attempts while Maldivian E A Sattar scored 18 out of 30 attempts.

Earlier on the same day Sri Lanka defeated Hong Kong in the opening match by 81-38. Sri Lanka co captain Tharjini Sivalingam went on to score 75 off a 78 attempts.

Singapore beat Malaysia by 38-34 in the second match of the day. . The Malaysians led by the second quarter at 19-14 could not hold on to the same trend in the last two quarters.. Y.M. Ling sho 18 goals out of 19 attempts to take Singapore for the victory.

India easily defeated freshers, Japan by 64-17 with their goal shooter, R. Kaur scoring 40 goals in 47 attempts. Form the start of the game they played better netball than inexperienced Japan.