Eight nations for LG Open Amateur begining tomorrow

Chandigarh , Jan 13 (UNI) Eight countries, including favourites and defending champions India, have staked their claims for the top Honours in the 107th LG All India Open Amateur which tees off at the Chandigarh Golf Club here tomorrow.

The Indian team consists of Abhishek Jha, three-time winner in the current season, number two Manav Das, number three on the Order-of-Merit Gagan Verma, three-time Sri Lankan Open Amateur winner and number four Simarjeet Singh.

The main threat to India's challenge will come from Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei. Defending champion K Prabagaran leads the Lankan challenge along with LG Eastern India winner Mithun Pereira.

Chinese Taipei have Chi-Hsien Hsieh and Tao Huang in their ranks. The other teams include Nepal, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran.

The event opens with a two-day stroke play championship which will act as qualifying round. The top 64 players emerging from the qualifying round will be seeded thus and then will then battle it out in the match-play format with the 36-hole final slated for January 20. The stroke play championship will also decide the team championship.

Teams: India: Gagan Verma, Manav Das, Abhishek Jha, Simarjeet Singh Nepal: Tashi Ghale (Player/Team Manager). Rupak Acharya Malaysia: Akhmal Tarmizee Bin Mohd Nazari, Haziq Bin Hamizan, Edmund Jonathan Au, Muhammad Arie Bin Ahmad Fauzi.

Sri Lanka: K Prabagaran, Mithun Parera, K A Chandradasa, J M D Indika, Lal Wickrematunge Hon. Secretary, SLGU (Team Manager) Pakistan: Mohammad Omar Ghias (Team Manager), Muhammad Safdar Khan, Tariq Mehmood, Aadil Jehangir, Danyaal Jehangir. Reserves:, Muhammad Roheel, Sajid Khan. Salman Jehangir (private entry).

Bangladesh: Shahid (Team A), Zamal Hossain Mollah (Team A), Md Shakhwat hossain Shohel (Team B), Md Liton Hawlader (Team B), A. K.

Fazle Rabbi (Team Manager).

Chinese Taipei: Chi-Hsien Hsieh (Team A), Tao Huang (Team A), Chien-Yao Hung (Team B), Hao-Sheng Hsu (Team B), Yu-Sung Du (Coach).

Iran: Ali Jome Gholizadeh Shehni, Mohammadreza Sheyni, Eraj Ghanbari Birgnai, Ahmad Gholi Bahadori Birgani, Saeid Barati.

Hedayat Yazdi (coach), Shahram Beug Zadeh (supervisor), Ali Mohammad Jafari Nasir (doctor), Alireza Morad Hajati (Federation representative).

UNI XC HS AB BST1901