World billiards champion Geet Sethi staged a remarkable fightback as India won the Seniors' event of the IBSF World Snooker Team Championship in San Jose, with a 6-5 final black ball victory over New Zealand on Saturday.
Sethi was 1-64 down in the last frame against Dene O'Kane after the two teams were level at 5-5 but his experience and composure helped the team, which also included Devendra Joshi and B V S Murthy, romp home victorious.
However, disappointment was in store for India 'A' team comprising Pankaj Advani, Manan Chandra and Yasin Merchant, as the trio crashed to a 3-8 defeat against England in the final of the men's event.
India 'A' opened up account with Advani, a former IBSF World Snooker champion, defeating Michael Rhodes, but the English hit back through David Lilley and David Craggs who won the following four frames.
Lilley had a break of 51 in the second frame, Craggs notched a break of 44 in the third frame, and success for Lilley on a repotted black in the fourth frame.
Contributions of 24 and 31 in the sixth frame by Chandra pegged the English back to 4-2, but Craggs then restored the English three-frame advantage by gaining the seventh frame and a 5-2 end of session lead.
England returned to the second session's play with all guns blazing as Rhodes knocked in runs of 25 and 49 to overcome Merchant in frame eight, only to see Advani reduce the deficit to 6-3 as he held back Lilley.
Thirty-year-old Craggs then got the English team on the verge of victory as he fired in a break of 62 to claim frame ten, and the match and title was then secured for England as Rhodes comprehensively won the eleventh frame with a break of 46.
Meanwhile, the Sports Ministry has given Advani the permission to take the earliest flight of whatever class back to India in order to receive the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award from President A P J Abdul Kalam in New Delhi on Tuesday, Billard and Snooker Federation vice-president Ravi Tandon said.
