Damien Bis­nath turned out to be the hero when the Cuetrollerz paid a vis­it to Bil­liards Place in Aranguez on Wednes­day to take on the Sicar­ios in the Na­tion­al Pool League (NPL).

Bis­nath, the vis­it­ing team’s vice-cap­tain and one of T&T’s top play­ers, start­ed slow­ly but when he got go­ing, he put on a clin­ic in the dy­ing stages of their pre­mier di­vi­sion match. The Cuetrollerz’ sec­ond in com­mand was un­der the gun ear­ly against Al­bi Knights in the night’s fifth and fi­nal game.

With the match score tied at two games each, Bis­nath trailed four frames to one in a race to five and looked dead in the wa­ter. But his nev­er-say-die at­ti­tude kicked in and frame six sig­nalled the turn­ing point. Af­ter a dry break (no balls fell on the lead-off shot) by Knights, Bis­nath played a safe­ty on the one ball, which Knights had to play at, rail first. He was able to make con­tact with the hid­den ball but gave his op­po­nent an easy shot.

From there, Bis­nath start­ed his fight back with a clear­ance (ta­ble run). The sev­enth frame was more of the same but this time, with Bis­nath to break. He sank the eight ball on his lead-off shot and pro­ceed­ed to clear the ta­ble again, a break and run. The score, now, four frames to three in favour of Knights. The Sicar­ios play­er had a chance to put his op­po­nent away in the eighth rack but missed a straight-in shot on the eighth. The missed shot re­sult­ed in Bis­nath be­ing snook­ered be­hind the nine-ball. He came out of it and gave Knights an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to win but again Knights missed, and again, Bis­nath was with­out a clear shot at the eight-ball.

En­ter the jump-cue. Bis­nath pulled out his jump cue and pulled off what could very well be, the shot of the night. He suc­cess­ful­ly jumped over the nine, made the eight and mirac­u­lous­ly got a good po­si­tion on the nine to fin­ish the frame and make the con­test a hill/hill af­fair. The play­ers shook hands at four frames each with Bis­nath to break.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly for the Sicar­ios, the next time Knights came to the ta­ble was to shake hands again, on­ly this time, it would be to con­grat­u­late his op­po­nent, as Bis­nath closed out the frame, game and match with an­oth­er break and run. The Cuetrollerz cel­e­brat­ed and the Sicar­ios had no choice but to ap­plaud, what was, an amaz­ing come­back. The last time these two teams met in the first half of the league, the Sicar­ios came out on top and Bis­nath and Knights were al­so drawn to play each oth­er. On that oc­ca­sion, Knights was a com­fort­able win­ner, so it was a case of sweet re­venge.

Ear­li­er in the night, Kaz­im Daniel of the Sicar­ios was drawn to play Desmond "Blade" Nicholls and it was Nicholls who drew first blood, win­ning four racks to one. Adri­an Lo­gie, the Sicar­ios cap­tain, was next against Tren Quash and not much sep­a­rat­ed the two through six frames with Lo­gie tak­ing frames one, three and five. Lo­gie al­so won the sev­enth rack and man­aged to change the se­quence by win­ning the eighth as well to win his game 5-3 and tie up the match-up at one game each.

The dou­bles pair of Adri­an Mo­ra and Fred Gra­ham was next against the vis­it­ing pair of Ja­son Khan and Reynold Sama­roo. The first four frames were won via com­bi­na­tion shots on the nine-ball (tack­les) with Mo­ra and Gra­ham tak­ing the sec­ond rack. Missed op­por­tu­ni­ties plagued the Sicar­ios duo through­out the game and Khan and Sama­roo cap­i­talised every time, the Cuetrollerz duo go­ing on to win the en­counter 5-2.

The next game turned out to be a bat­tle of at­tri­tion, with Kevin Browne for the hosts ver­sus Marouf Mo­hammed for the vis­i­tors. Mo­hammed won the first frame with Browne win­ning the next two. Mo­hammed an­swered with two wins as well be­fore Browne won two more to reach the hill first. Mo­hammed joined him at the peak with a win in the eighth frame but Browne had enough in the tank to seal the game with a tricky cut shot on the nine-ball. All tied up at two be­fore the Bis­nath/Knights show. The win sees Cuetrollerz re­main in third on the stand­ings with sev­en wins and five loss­es. Sicar­ios, mean­while, are fifth and are now un­der 500 for the first time with five wins and six loss­es.

In a resched­uled match on Thurs­day, Ri­vals host­ed the An­ni­hi­la­tors, at the Ri­valz Bil­liards Place base and the hosts came away with a re­sound­ing 5-nil win.

Ri­valz cap­tain, Rea­gan Low Chew Tung start­ed the rout with a 5-0 win against Ravi Ram­nath. The sec­ond game be­tween Ri­valz’ Kr­ishen­dath ‘Su­pa’ Heer­alal and Ka­mal Ho­sein was ac­tu­al­ly drawn to play fifth but was brought for­ward. Heer­alal won the game 5-2. The home pair of Ricky Isaacs and Ran­dall Bood­han were 5-1 win­ners over Rishi Sam­path and Ron­nie Ram­saran, the vis­i­tors start­ed well by win­ning the first frame but that was their on­ly suc­cess. The fourth game, which should have been played sec­ond, be­tween Fa­reed Abra­ham and Lawren­cio El­liot was much more com­pet­i­tive, go­ing to the hill with Abra­ham ek­ing out a 5-4 win.

Clint Bachan com­plet­ed the blowout with a 5-2 win over An­ni­hi­la­tors’ cap­tain Bar­ry Ash­meed-Syne. Ri­valz hold on to sec­ond place on the stand­ings with a record of Nine wins and two loss­es, while An­ni­hi­la­tors are root­ed to the bot­tom of the eight-team ta­ble with one win from 12 match­es. There is one more match to play in round 14 be­tween sixth-placed Gold­en Arch­es and sev­enth-placed Shoot­ing Stars. That has been resched­uled to Tues­day 18th March. Unit­ed Stars and ‘D’ Un­der­dawgs were in­ac­tive in round 14.

Unit­ed Stars lead the di­vi­sion with nine wins and one loss and ‘D’ Un­der­dawgs oc­cu­py fourth spot with five wins and six loss­es.

Fix­tures

To­mor­row's Round 14 (resched­uled match)

Shoot­ing Stars vs Gold­en Arch­es at Pyra­mid Sports Bar, Gas­par­il­lo

Wednes­day's Round 15

Cuetrollerz vs Shoot­ing Stars at Pyra­mid Sports Bar, Gas­par­il­lo

The An­ni­hi­la­tors vs Sicar­ios at Lucky Sports Bar, Williamsville

D Un­der­dawgs vs Unit­ed Stars at Lucky Sports Bar, Williamsville