Pakistan volleyball team claims bronze medal in CAVA Nations League

Pakistan senior men’s volleyball team on Wednesday clinched the bronze medal when they conquered Kazakhstan 3-1 in the playoff for the third place in CAVA Nations League in Fergana, Uzbekistan.

Pakistan did well in almost every zone to beat the side against whom the Green-shirts had lost their group game a few days ago.

Pakistan made a positive start to the match which they needed to win to restore some prestige following their below-par showing against India, a battle which should have been won by Pakistan keeping in view the way the team has progressed in recent years.

Pakistan were at one stage leading with 18-14 and from there they kept going well to finish the set convincingly with a 25-19 victory.

Kazakhstan, however, showed discipline in the second set despite a tough resistance from Pakistan and won it 25-23 to make it 1-1.

However, it was now Pakistan’s turn who showed top class game in the third set which they won 25-16 to take 2-1 lead.

In the fourth set a grueling fight was witnessed before Pakistan sealing a 25-22 victory to finish at the victory podium with a bronze medal.

“The team played extremely well today. The block was superb especially,” former Pakistan captain and the country’s renowned professional spiker Aimal Khan told Nukta.

“Our game against Iran was also not bad but the way we played against India was extremely bad. We will need to boost our service if we are fight well against some good oppositions,” Aimal said.

Pakistan Volleyball Federation’s (PVF) Director Technical Naseer Ahmed was also happy that Pakistan at least finished at the victory podium.

“You cannot say it a good performance but still a podium finish is a consolation. We should have beaten Kazakhstan and India in the previous matches which could put us in the final,” Naseer told this correspondent.

After taking a bright start to the event by beating Kyrgyzstan 3-0 Pakistan lost their second game 3-1 to Kazakhstan. In the third show Pakistan faced a 3-0 drubbing against India before they went down to strong Iran 3-1 in the next show to settle for a bronze medal fight against Kazakhstan.

Pakistan will now feature in the AVC Men’s Volleyball Nations Cup penciled in for June 17 to 25 at Bahrain.

Immediately after Eid-ul-Adha the training will be resumed for the said event at the Jinnah Stadium Islamabad. Pakistan have been clubbed in Group C with Chinese Taipei and Philippines.

Hosts Bahrain, Indonesia and Thailand are in Group A, Qatar, Australia and Kazakhstan form Group B while Group D contains South Korea, Vietnam and New Zealand.

Top two teams from each group will move into the top eight in the event which will be played at the Isa Bin Rashid Hall at Manama.

“Pakistan are in easy group and it would be seen who they meet in the quarter-finals,” Aimal said.

However, he was optimistic that the Nations League experience will benefit the team in the Bahrain’s event.

“Nations League experience will be vital and let’s see how the team performs,” Aimal said.

Aimal is the most experienced player with a huge off-shore league expertise but he was surprisingly not picked for the CAVA Nations League.