World Amateur Billiards Championship

Wild Card Winner

The 27th World Amateur Billiards Championship held in Bangalore,14th-25th August, 1990 was won by Manoj Kothari of Calcutta who was India's fourth choice player and took his place in the Championship owing to the last minute withdrawal of the Philippine representative Edward Chan. Kothari seized his unexpected chance to defeat compatriot and No.1 seed Ashok Shandilya 2,890-2,422 in the eight hour final. David Seddon of Scotland also withdrew but his place was not filled. English Amateur Champion Martin Goodwill, seeded No.2.was unlucky not to qualify for the semi-finals. English Championship runner-up Peter Shelley lost his first three matches and, with them, his hopes of qualifying but, when acclimatised played well.

Shelley, playing in Group.A found tough opposition in Shandilya (India,) Nalin Patel (India,) David Meredith (New Zealand,) and Phil Tarrant (Australia.) Meredith, who had a break of 357 in the tournament, missed out on a semifinal place on points difference. In his decisive match with Patel the New Zealander had to win by more than 236 points to take second place in the group. He won by 178 -not quite enough. Tarrant too might have qualified. He lost to Shandilya by one point. From the, Times of India," "With about 30 seconds remaining Tarrant was at the table trailing 1264 - 1276. He picked up 9 points in a jiffy but could not get a good position with barely 5 seconds left. The object white came to rest near the pink spot and the red near the right centre pocket. Playing from hand Tarrant got a long loser on the white after a brief hesitation. Shandilya, in the meantime, standing just behind Tarrant craned forward to watch the clock, perhaps unaware that he was unfairly distracting his opponent. And even as the referee strode to the top left pocket to retrieve the cue-ball, an excited Shandilya shouted 'Time up"indicating that the match was over. At that juncture the difference was a mere one point." Sounds like the Anzacs had something of a rough passage.

This was the easier of the two groups on paper. Subash Agarwal, possibly the best player in the Championship, was expected to qualify, whilst Martin Goodwill had every hope of so doing and would have but for the last minute inclusion of Manoj Kothari. Goodwill had either to beat one of the two Indians or hope that one of the lesser fancied players could pull of a surprise win. It didn't happen. Martin was desperately unlucky to lose to Kothari by only 4 points in a frenetic finish. A pot red and a cannon would have ensured him of at least third place, a mere 5 points may never be so important to him again. He thus had to beat Agarwal. This was never going to be easy though at the end of the first session he was only 30 behind. After some tense low-scoring play Agarwal found form, and with 222, 264, and 146, finished a comfortable winner. And so Goodwill could count himself a little unlucky. Just what the Englishman would have done had he qualified remains unknown. Owing to late notification of the Tournament's change of date, his flight home was booked for the day before the Final and, as Goodwill is a serving R.A.F. man, there must be some doubt as to whether he could have obtained permission to stay in India especially as the Tournament coincided with the first week of the Gulf Crisis.

Fantasy Finish

Both matches were close and that between Shandilya and Agarwal had a remarkable finish. Agarwal lead for most of the game but Shandilya stuck to his task and as the match entered its last half -hour had taken the lead by two points. Agarwal then made a 111, a 66, and with smaller items took the lead by 210 with just over 17 minutes to go. Shandilya then played out time with 267 unfinished to win by 70 points in what must be one of the most dramatic finishes of all time in a World Championship match.

The Wrong Ball

The second semi also produced a very good finish if not quite as dramatic. With a half-hour left Nalin Patel found himself trailing by nearly three hundred. Making a supreme effort he ran up a break of 240 to reduce the gap to just 30. Kothari, shaken, was unable to reply. Patel could have won at that moment. He scored a great all-round cannon but such was the tension he had played with the wrong ball. Kothari scored a few, scored a few again at his next visit and scraped home by a mere 83 points. Such a win, combined with the fortuitous circumstances of his playing in the Championship at all, and with his so narrow victory over Goodwill, would lead one to think that Manoj was predestined to be the 1990 World Amateur Champion. Kothari won a tense Final 2,890-2,422 to become the fourth Indian World Champion after Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira, and Geet Sethi.

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