1. Art and Diseño

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2015
S P ORTS
Kuwaiti shooters top KSSC tourney
By Abdellatif Sharaa
KUWAIT: Kuwait Shooting Sports Club organized Kuwait
Sporting Shooting Championship, on the heels of HH the
Amir 4th Annual International Grand Prix at Sabah AlAhmad Olympic Shooting Complex. The Championship
saw Kuwaiti shooters dominate in all events.
Shooter Jasim Al-Raihan won first place in the professionals category, followed by Fahad Lafi Al-Mutairi and
Mansour Al-Rashidi was third, UAE’s Marwan Al-Amiya
emerged fourth, Saud Al-Rashidi fifth and Mohammad
Nayef Al-Daihani sixth.
In the women’s category, Kuwait’s shooter Afrah Adel
Abdelrahman took first place, followed by Sarah
Abdelrahman Al-Hawal and Iman Al-Shamma.
In the pioneers category, Eng Duaij Khalaf Al-Otaibi, the
President of the Arab and Kuwait Shooting Federations
snatched first place following a friendly competition with
Masoud Jouhar Hayat, who is one of the founders of
Kuwait Shooting Club and supporter of Kuwait shooters.
Al-Otaibi hit 44 targets while Hayat hit 43 out of 50.
Hussam Al-Roumi took place after hitting 40 out of 50 targets. The competitions were carried out according to the
rules of international federations for sporting shooting
located in Paris.
The championship was supervised by technical experts
from Belgium and Portugal, while Kuwaiti referees officiated. Kuwait Shooting Sport Club prepared and designed a
special international range for this sport, and is among the
best range in the world.
Asia confident of
shift at World Cup
Brandt Snedeker
Technical focus bad for
Snedeker’s putting touch
SCOTTSDALE: If proof was ever needed
for the average club hacker that even
the very best players can struggle in
golf, then look no further than at putting maestro Brandt Snedeker.
Widely viewed as one of the game’s
leading putters over the past eight
years, the fast-talking American has
recently been struggling on the greens
after clouding his mind with too much
focus on technique. A six-times winner
on the PGA Tour, Snedeker has not triumphed on the U.S. circuit since the
2013 RBC Canadian Open and he fell
short of his customary high standards
last season when he made 20 of 25 cuts
but posted only three top-10s.
“Obviously my game hasn’t been
anywhere near where it needs to be,”
the fast-talking American told Reuters at
the Waste Management Phoenix Open
where he is playing his fifth event of the
2014-15 season. “But I feel like after
making a change last year to (swing
coach) Butch Harmon that my game is a
lot better now than it has been for the
last year-and-a-half. The thing that has
been holding me back is my putting, I
haven’t been putting any good.
“I kind of made some changes that
are really, really star ting to come
through and I feel like I’m on the right
path. I just need to see some (putts) go
in. You see some go in and everything
changes.” Snedeker is not only
renowned for his extraordinary putting
touch but also for his old-style ‘pop’
stroke which is made with minimum of
fuss in relatively fast fashion.
PERFECT TECHNIQUE
However, having long been an everpresent at the top of the PGA Tour’s putting charts, Snedeker has dropped well
down the pecking order over the past
year mainly due to a fixation with perfect technique. “I’ve kind of gotten away
from what I do and trying to put a perfect stroke on every putt is not the way I
putt,” said the 34-year- old from
Nashville, who carded a one-under-par
70 in the opening round at the TPC
Scottsdale.
“I kind of got too much into that,
making sure my stroke is on plane and
path and everything is good instead of
getting back into reading putts and just
hitting them.
“So I’m getting more back into that
and seeing some good results and seeing what I want to see out there. I just
need to see a couple go in, see a couple
go in and it comes right back so I’m not
too worried about it.” Snedeker, who
clinched the PGA Tour’s FedExCup title
in 2012, led the Tour’s ‘strokes gained
over the field’ putting statistic that year
and was placed fourth in that area in
2013.
However last year, he dropped to
27th in strokes gained while this season he is surprisingly languishing in
110th spot. “The putts outside 10 feet
will come,” Snedeker said. “Inside 10
feet, I’ve been struggling with those
five, six, seven-footers, which you need
obviously to make to shoot a good
number.”—Reuters
NEW DELHI: Conventional wisdom says Asian
teams usually succumb on the bouncy wickets
of Australia or the seaming pitches in New
Zealand, making them vulnerable and rank outsiders for the World Cup. Co-hosts Australia and
New Zealand, alongside the mighty South Africa,
are the bookmakers’ favorites to win one-day
cricket’s biggest prize, with Asian teams way
down in the pecking order. But those already
writing off Asia’s big three-India, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka-will do so at their own peril. And not just
because of the unpredictable nature of the limited-overs game.
The only other time the tournament was held
Down Under, in 1992, it was Pakistan which won
the title beating England by 22 runs in the final
at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Australia did not even make the knock-out
rounds, while the Kiwis, like the South Africans,
crashed out in the semi-finals.
Home advantage clearly does not count for
much. Defending champions India are the only
team to have won the World Cup on home soil,
while Sri Lanka won it in Pakistan as co-hosts of
the 1996 event. Barring major upsets, like in
2007 when India and Pakistan were knocked out
in the first round, Asia should have three teamseven more if Bangladesh, Afghanistan or the
United Arab Emirates cause an upset-in the
quarter-finals.
After that, three victories will ensure a team
the title-a task easier said than done but one
that gives the eight qualifiers a reasonable shot
at the title.
Kapil Dev, under whom India won its first
World Cup in 1983 by shocking overwhelming
favourites West Indies at Lord’s, said picking a
winner was not easy.
“Once you enter the quarter-finals, anything
can happen,” Dev told AFP. “Every team has a
chance, including the ones from Asia. It all
depends on how you play on that day.
“But if a side has to have an off-day, it better
be during the first round where one can recover.
Can’t afford that in the knock-outs.” In 2011,
India and Sri Lanka finished second in their
respective groups and yet entered the final as
pool A winners Pakistan fell in the semi-finals
and pool B leaders South Africa went out in the
quarter-finals.
While India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have the
batting to take on the rest, much will depend on
how their meagre bowling resources are able to
contain the opposition.
Sri Lanka, finalists on the last two occasions,
boast the top three run-getters in one-day cricket among those still playing in Kumar
Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and
Tillakaratne Dilshan.
Sangakkara and Jayawardene, members of an
exclusive club of five batsmen with more than
12,000 one-day runs, are in top form to raise
hopes of making their last World Cup appearance a memorable one. World bowling recordholder Muttiah Muralitharan believes this could
be Sri Lanka’s World Cup after coming so near in
2007 and 2011.
“We have been just about the most consistent side around in major tournaments over the
past decade, regularly reaching semi-finals and
finals,” Muralitharan told the tournament’s official website. “I have faith this group of players
can achieve the dream again and I hope they
have that faith too.” Pakistan, faced with bowling
suspensions of Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad
Hafeez due to faulty actions, will look to make
amends through their batting which includes
captain Misbah-ul Haq, Younis Khan and Shahid
Afridi.
“If we play to our potential, we can win,” said
Misbah, whose 56-ball hundred against Australia
last year equalled Viv Richards’ record for the
fastest Test century.
“The boys are focused on achieving the best
result. They have the hunger and passion to
work for it.” In Rohit Sharma, the only batsman
with two 200s in one-day internationals, Virat
Kohli, Suresh Raina and skipper Mahendra Singh
Dhoni, India possess destructive batting firepower to tame the best attacks. “Never write
India off, they will always be formidable in oneday cricket,” said former skipper Sourav Ganguly.
“This side is capable of repeating 2011.”—AFP
PERTH: England’s Stuart Broad bowls a delivery during a training session in Perth. —AP