Bangkok, Thailand, October 14, 2023 – Hosts Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan completed the single round-robin Central Asian Volleyball Association (CAVA) Men’s Volleyball Challenge Cup on a one-two finish and are set to face off in rivalry clash at Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Sunday.
Sri Lanka powered past Bangladesh 3-1 (25-18, 25-21, 19-25, 25-23) on Saturday, Saudi Arabia bounced back from the first set loss to beat Afghanistan 3-1 (21-25, 25-15, 25-19, 25-22) and Uzbekistan demolished Nepal 3-0 (25-22, 25-20, 26-24).
After hectic five days of the round-robin preliminaries, Sri Lanka finished atop the 6-team standing with uncatchable 13 points from 4 wins against one loss, followed by Uzbekistan with one point behind from the similar performance of four wins against one loss.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Nepal had 6 points apiece from 2 wins against 3 losses. However, due to the better sets and points ratios, Afghanistan came in third place, with Saudi Arabia and Nepal in fourth and fifth places respectively. Bangladesh bagged 2 points from one win against 5 losses to finish on the bottom sixth place.
With only top two teams advancing to the Sunday’s final showdown and the next two teams fighting it out in the third-place playoff for the bronze medal, Sri Lanka will next face off against Uzbekistan in the showdown, while Afghanistan will fight it out with Saudi Arabia in the third-place playoff.
Contesting their last preliminary match against world No.72 Bangladesh on Saturday, hosts and world No.67 Sri Lanka comfortably took the first two sets 25-18, 25-21, but as Bangladesh put their acts together and started to produce the goods with huge attacks and effective blocks, Sri Lanka succumbed to the third set letdown 19-25.
The fourth set was closely-contested, with both sides pouring everything to win the set. However, the Sri Lankans fared better at home stretch to capture the close set 25-23 and match.
Bandara Jayalath led the Sri Lanka’s scoring efforts in this thrilling match to deliver 19 point from 18 kills and one ace, while Horosit Biswas topscored with 17 points including 16 kills from 37 attempts for Bangladesh.
The Sri Lankans dominated in kills (70 to 53), getting 5 blocking stuffs to Bangladesh’s 4, but both sides performed similarly well in aces (2-2). Bangladesh benefited from more opponent errors (28 to 17).
Sri Lanka advanced to the Sunday’s final clash against Uzbekistan, the team they went down…
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