Jeet emerges State senior snooker champion

Jeet Kishore Das (Cuttack) fought back in time to win the senior snooker title in the final of the 15th Orissa State Billiards Snooker Championship,which concluded at the Cuesport Academy in Bhubaneswar today. In an exciting final that lasted over four hours, Jeet edged out 10-times former champion Ahsan-ul Haque (Nalco) by 5-4 frames. Trailing 1-4 at one stage, Jeet displayed strong nerves and fine putting skill to win the clash 53-16, 57-61, 19-52, 37-77, 53-66, 63-40, 57-17, 60-19, 64-32. It was the first senior snooker title for Jeet, who returned to competitive cuesports earlier this year after a gap of seven years. He earlier won the state junior billiards and snooker crowns for three years in a row from 1999 to 2001. Orissa State Billiards and Snooker Association secretary Srimoy Kar, Treasurer P N Singhdeo and former State volleyball captain P C Patnaik gave away trophies to the winners and runners-up of all six categories at the closing function. The 12 finalists qualified to represent Orissa in the National Billiards and Snooker Championship to be held at Agra from September 14 to October 4. The closing celebration of the championship turned out to be a soul-searching session with a top offficial of the state body baring his ideas and feelings of the sport in the state. BSAO secretary Srimoy Kar threw light on the problems afflicting the sport and suggested ways to overcome these. He emphasised on better involvement of cueists, sough their cooperation. ``Senior players should take the responsibility to enrich the sport,`` he said. He announced that the recent practice of giving prize money in the state meet was rejected this time as it violated the guidelines of the National federation. Kar also made it clear that playing cuesport was not a free-of-cost proposition and players should not mind to pay the cost. Kar, who is also the Orissa editor of New Indian Express, urged the cuesport fraternity to get more involved in the developement of the green-baize game. He also highly appreciated people for their self-less contribution for cuesposts in the state. ``Subrat Das is a dog for cuesports in Orissa. Give his any responsibility for the betterment of the sport in the state, follows it like a dog,`` complimented the BSAO secretary. PHOTO: Finalists of the 15th Orissa State Billiards and Snooker Championship display their trophies in Bhubaneswar August 9, 2009.