Title Turkmenistan's

Turkmenistan clinched the DBBL Asian Senior Men's Central Zone Volleyball Championship title after coming back from 2-0 down to secure a 3-2 victory over Maldives in the final at Shaheed Suhrawardi Indoor Stadium in Mirpur yesterday.

Maldives, who started the tournament with a defeat against hosts Bangladesh, dominated the first two sets 29-27 and 25-22 and were on course for lifting the glittering trophy, but Turkmenistan, who were not tagged favourites before the tournament, came back strongly to level the margin 2-2 by winning the third and fourth sets and took the final into a decisive fifth set, where they dominated from the outset and didn't look behind before securing it 15-13 to win first-ever international title.

"Maldives played really well in the first two sets and then our coach instructed us to block the opponents' number 9 [Sajid Ismail] and after that we started gaining momentum," said lifter Usmanbek Kalandarov after the match.

"Personally I am very glad to be a member of this winning team and I want to thank the very cordial people of Bangladesh, who supported us from the beginning," said Usmanbek in his broken English.

"I'm very happy that the boys showed their skills in the last three sets to win the tournament," coach Atayev Gammarguly was quoted as saying by Usmanbek.

Though Maldives lost the final, they won the hearts of hundreds of spectators through their celebrations after getting each point. Maldives player Sajid was named the most valuable player of the tournament.

"I was declared the man of the tournament but I am not happy to hang the silver medal around my neck because we lost the final and my achievement did not help the team," said Sajid.

He believed the players felt a bit over-confident after winning the first two sets and that should be one of reasons behind the defeat and that they could not block well in the later part of the last set.

After the final, spectators took to the wooden floor and took photos with players of both teams.

Afghanistan finished third after beating Nepal 24-26, 25-18, 34-32, 22-25, 15-11.

The champions were awarded 1,000 dollars while the runners-up received 500 dollars.