Bangkok, Thailand, October 10, 2023 – Fresh from sealing their first wins on Monday, hosts Sri Lanka and Afghanistan lived up to the expectations to make it two on the trot in the Central Asian Volleyball Association (CAVA) Men’s Challenge Cup at Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
On Tuesday, world No. 67 Sri Lanka handed Nepal, which finished 18th place at the recently concluded 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 Men’s Volleyball Competition, their first loss in the one-week competition by brushing off the lower-ranked opponents in straight sets for the second victory in the round-robin tournament.
The host side faced a strong challenge from Nepal in the hard-fought first set, but eventually edged past the fighting visitors 26-24. Sri Lanka played with more confidence and were on fire to comfortably pull off the 25-18, 25-16 wins in the next two sets for the match.
Bandar Jayalath was the most productive player of Sri Lanka to score a match-high 24 points including 22 attacks from 33 attempts, while Shrestha Man led Nepal with 17 points, all in attack.
The Sri Lanka’s dominance was also visible in the match stats as the winners dominated with the attacking and blocking game with kills (47 to 38) and blocks (7-1) apart from having more aces (3 to 2) and benefiting from more opponent errors (19 and 17).
Sri Lanka, which posted the first-day win following their 3-0 rout of Saudi Arabia, are due to next take on Uzbekistan on Wednesday, while Nepal will go up against Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, world No. 68 Afghanistan, which finished a disappointing 17th in the recent 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, struggled hard in their opener to beat world No.86 Uzbekistan in hard-fought five sets on Monday, but had a comfortable day the following day to demolish Bangladesh in straight sets 25-25, 25-19, 25-22.
Haidari Gulam Rasool, who was instrumental in lifting the team’s victory against Uzbekistan on Monday, contributed 14 points including 12 attacks from 18 attempts for Afghanistan. No Bangladeshi player reached double digits in this match, as SK Ismile Hossan scored 9 points from 8 attacks from 24 attempts and one block in the team’s loss.
Bangladesh will next challenge Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to fight for their first win in this competition.
World No.65 Saudi Arabia succumbed to their consecutive second loss at the hands of Uzbekistan on Tuesday, going down in straight sets 21-25, 19-25, 23-25.
Ismoilov Farrukh led the Uzbekistan’s offense with 17 points including 16 kills from 22 attempts, while Ali Alkaili scored 7 points on the Saudi Arabia’s losing effort.
The single round-robin competition continues on Wednesday. Thursday is the rest day.
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