Lahore : BN Polo and Diamond Paints won the opening day matches of the Aquafina Allama Iqbal Polo Cup 2021 played here at the Jinnah Polo and Country Club (JP&CC) ground on Tuesday.Eulogio Celestino fired in fabulous five goals in BN Polo’s 10-6 victory over Newage/Rizvi’s in the first match of the day. Raja Mikail Sami and Tito Ruiz Guinazu also played superb polo and converted a brace each while Babar Naseem scored one goal. From Newage/Rizvi’s, the major contribution came from Salvador Ulloa, who fired in fabulous five goals while Syed Muhammad Turab Rizvi struck one goal.BN Polo started the match well and converted two against one by Newage/Rizvi’s to take 2-1 lead. Newage bounced back in style and hammered an impressive hat-trick of goals against one by BN Polo to gain a slight 4-3 lead. The third chukker saw total dominance of BN Polo, who converted back-to-back fabulous five goals to earn a healthy 8-4 lead. They added two more goals in their tally in the fourth and last chukker to make it 10-4 while Newage/Rizvi’s converted two goals, but lost the match by 6-10.The closely contested second encounter of the opening day was won by Diamond Paints, who defeated DS Polo/ASC by 9 1/2-8. Ramiro Zaveletta and Saqib Khan Khakwani played outstanding polo and converted five and two goals respectively while they had two and a half goal handicap advantage. From DS Polo/ASC, Hissam Ali Hyder smashed in sterling six goals while Maxwell Charlton and Ahmed Bilal Riaz slammed in one goal each.Diamond Paints started the match having 2 1/2 handicap advantage while they banged in a brace to make it 4 1/2-0. In the dying moments of the first chukker, DS Polo/ASC converted one to make it 4 1/2-1. Diamond Paints made a good come back and thrashed in two back-to-back goals to enhance their lead to 6 1/2-1. But DS Polo/ASC also bounced back well and hammered a hat-trick of goals to level the score at 6 1/2-4.DS Polo/ASC continued their good show in the third chukker as well as they slammed in three more back-to-back goals to gain 7-6 1/2 lead but Diamond Paints also banged in a brace to get back 8 1/2-7 lead. The fourth and last chukker was evenly poised as both the sides succeeded in converting one goal apiece, thus Diamond Paints won the match by 9 1/2-8.
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