PNN
Bhubaneswar, Sept 12: Purple Squirrel (PS) led by the experienced cueist Subrat Das emerged champions dethroning last year’s winners Baize Rulers (BR) in the final of the Orissa Snooker Premier League (OSPL) here Sunday night. In the summit clash played at the Vintage Club here, PS overcame BR 3-2 in a nail-biting contest.
PS got off to a good start with P Patnaik beating Ashwini Patnaik 3-2 (70-15, 31-60, 29-64, 62-26, 75-07). But the lead was shortlived as Rakesh Roshan Pradhan of BR trounced Sudipta Dash 3-0 (67-12, 59-46, 61-50).
Jeet Kishore Das (BR) then put his side ahead with a scintillating 3-1 (81-38, 37-51, 73-25, 69-56) victory of Jiten Sarangi (PS). With the fate of the match hanging on a thread, an experienced Subrat stepped up to the table to restore parity of PS with a 3-1 (70-26, 42-34, 55-58, 79-29) win over Amiya S Nayak.
At 2-2 it could have been anybody’s match as Kunal Agarwal (PS) and Chirag Arora (BR) squared up. In the end Kunal held on to his nerve to win 3-1 (72-56, 47-54, 69-30, 57-52) against Chirag.
Subrat remained unbeaten during the tournament, but the man of the final award was bagged by Kunal while the man of the tournament award went to Chirag of BR.