Cricket the only cheer

Bangladesh women's cricket team players celebrate the fall of a Hong Kong wicket during their Asian Games Group B match at the Guanggong International Cricket Stadium in Guangzhou yesterday. PHOTO: COURTESY

Tayef Quader's impressive run in men's 8-ball pool singles of the 16th Asian Games ended when the 21-year old went down 7-1 to Kuo Po Cheng of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals in Guangzhou yesterday.
However, there was good news from the cricket field for Bangladesh where the women's team made a winning start with a comprehensive 10-wicket victory against Hong Kong at Guanggong International Cricket Stadium while there was mixed results from the chessboard in the third and fourth round matches.
Performances from the shooting range did not get any better as both men and women's teams failed miserably in 10m air pistol events after their teammates' failure in the 10m air rifle events the previous day.
Meanwhile Tayef, who moved into the 8-ball pool quarterfinals beating Almutairi Khaled of Kuwait 7-6 in a keenly contested encounter earlier in the day, failed to keep the momentum and was eliminated from the race.
The women cricketers made light work of their Hong Kong counterparts. The Bangladeshi girls skittled their opponents for a meager 25 in 17.1 overs. There was seven run outs in the Hong Kong innings with KK Gill (11) managing the only double-digit score.
Chameli Khatun grabbed two wickets conceding four runs while Tithi Sarker took one for four.
Bangladesh wasted only 22 balls in overhauling the scanty target. The two openers Rumana Ahmed (1) and Farzana Pinki (17) remained unbeaten to give Bangladesh a reason to smile.
Sharmin Akter Liza was the highlight in the individual events of chess where all four players won their respective fourth round games.
Liza defeated Adhikari Asmita of Nepal and Boshra Alshaeby of Jordan in third and fourth round games while her teammate Sharmin Sultana Shirin beat Geldyeve Mekhri of Turkmenistan in the fourth round after losing her third round game to Tuvshing Tugs Batche of Mongolia.
However, the men were not as bright as their female compatriots as GM Niaz Murshed and FM Minhazuddin Ahmed lost their third round games before returning to winning ways defeating Ahmed Abdul Sattar of Iraq and Lee Kiyul of Korea respectively in the fourth round.
In shooting, Armin Asha and Farhana Kawsar Rony finished 36th and 51st respectively among 52 shooters in the women's 10m air pistol event. Armin shot 369 points while Rony managed 355.
Nadimul Islam and Iqbal Hossain also produced poor results in the men's 10m air pistol. Nadimul and Iqbal finished 42nd and 44th among 50 competitors in the qualifying round scoring 557 and 555 respectively.
In swimming, Kamal Hossain finished 25th out of 34 swimmers in the 100m breaststroke with a timing of 31.16 seconds at the Aoti Aquatic Center.