Bangladesh storm into final
Sports Reporter
Bangladesh stepped into the final when they claimed the hard-fought five-set thriller of the semifinal fixture with 3-2 sets (15-25, 25-20, 25-19, 13-25, 15-13) by grinding the defence wall of Kyrgyzstan at the Bangabandhu Asian Senior Mens Central Zone Volleyball Championship 2018 in Mirpur yesterday.
The red-green brigade will now lock horns with Turkmenistan in the title clash at the same venue on Friday.
At the Shaheed Suhrawardy Indoor Stadium, Bangladesh had got down playing with the hopes of the final and started in a solid way with the initial two successive points of the opening set what they got from Rasheds outstanding attack.
But they could not maintain it later of the opening set due to the groundswell support from Kyrgyzstans spikers especially captain Kanybek Uulu Onolbek and Shilov Roman. As a result, they lost the first set by 15-25 points.
Bangladesh brought changes in their playing strategy of attacking as some of the Kyrgyzstani spikers were too high. Itd be a foolish work to make only attack against them, the attack which was defended most of the time.
By making a bit shift in their playing strategy, Bangladesh came back into the court and yielded a good output that helped them win the exciting match, which was witnessed a full-house home crowds, most of whom were uniformed-students.
Bangladesh recovered the deficit of the first time-out of 6-8 points to the last time-out 23-20 and finally finished it to 25-20 points that levelled the margin of the 32-minute-long second set (1-1).
In third set, they initially lagged behind Kyrgyzstan but therefore, they also recovered from the deficit of the first technical time-out when they were on 6-8 points situation. Gradually they started getting the yield from the changed strategy, under which they launched attacks, defence and deception and finally triumphed the third set by 25-19 points that gave them 2-1 lead.
The match rolled onto the fourth set after Bangladesh won the back-to-back sets. Coming in the fourth set, Bangladesh didnt build any resistance against tourists spikers and shockingly surrendered to Kyrgyzstan by 13-25 points.
In the match-deciding set, both the teams players seemed to be exhausted a bit. Bangladesh earned the first point and then the opposition took a point to level the advantage. In this way, the match was progressing amid the chanting and loud sound of drum. At 13-12 situation, Bangladesh earned two consecutive points, the last of which came from a tactical deception of Bangladesh captain Horosit Biswas that paved Bangladesh way clear to the Fridays final.
Narayan Devnath of Bangladesh received the best spiker of the match, while Syed Atiqur Rahman (Libero) of the home side was named for the most valuable player award. Kyrgyzstan captain Kanybek Uulu Onolbek awarded with the best blocker prize.
Earlier, Turkmenistan justified their favourite tag of the tournament when they mauled Nepal by straight 3-0 (25-14, 25-18, 25-19) sets in the first semifinal and confirmed their spot in the final of the six-team championship. Jumyev Meret of Turkmenistan was named for the best blocker award.
