Sri Lanka’s renowned Beach Volleyball teams continued their impressive run registering impressive victories over their opponents at the Al Musannah beach in the 2nd Asian Beach Games continued yesterday. The first game between the Sri Lankan ‘A’ team and Palestine saw the Lankan pair of Wasantha Ratnapala and Mahesh Perera combining well with good understanding and cohesion to beat the threatening opponents in straight sets, 21/13, 21/15. Palestine who had beaten the fancied Oman team in their first match in a surprise result was a cause of concern in the Sri Lanka camp.
In fact earlier Oman had beaten Sri Lanka in a match at the Asian Games. However the Sri Lankan duo played well and placed their smashes to perfection that had the taller Palestinians’ bemused. They had no answers as the Lankan pair of Ratnapala and Perera continued to dominate in the afternoon sunshine. The Sri Lanka ‘A’ team now has to play against Oman in their final match and a win will take them to the top spot in group G. This will see Sri Lanka move to the top 16 teams that will feature in the pre quarter-finals.
The Sri Lanka ‘B’ team comprising of Asanka Pradeep and Naveen Sampath used their height to good effect coupled with clever placements to defeat the Maldives in straight sets 21/7, 21/18.
The Maldives were overwhelmed in the first set as they looked helplessly for options to counter the marauding Lankan pair. However, the Maldives came back with a counter plan in the second set and collected their points through some techniques that were very similar to those of the Lankan pair.
The Maldivian pair managed to maintain the scores along with the Lankans. They often caught up with the Lankan score through some good placements but lacked the finishing ability.
The Lankan pair of Pradeep and Sampath tightened up their game and finished off in style on 21/18. The Sri Lanka ‘B’ team has also to play one more match against Japan and a victory there would place them as leaders of group H and be amongst the last 16 teams.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka’s Kabaddi men’s team could not tackle the might of Iran and went down by 60 points to 26 losing both sets at the North Al Hail, Muscat yesterday. The sturdy Iranians were able to spoil the moves by the Sri Lankan’s and took the first set on 36/10. The Lankans just could not maintain the momentum and rhythm needed to earn the points.
The second half saw the Sri Lankans keep abreast with the Iranian score line early in the game but could not maintain the thrust once again and went down 24/16. Sri Lanka has to play against Pakistan today and a loss here would take them out of reckoning.