Bahrain book World Championship berth

Bahrain defeated Iran 27-16 to make it four wins from four last night in the Group B preliminaries of the 17th Asian Men’s Handball Championships at Khalifa Sports City in Isa Town and book a place in next year’s Men’s Handball World Championships in France.

The Bahrainis coached and managed by Spaniard Fernando Barbito held a 13-8 half-time lead and maintained its superiority to stay top of its group.

Previously, Bahrain had recorded wins against Lebanon (41-18), China (41-18) and UAE (28-26) and finishes its preliminaries tomorrow against Saudi Arabia at 7pm.

This is Bahrain’s 14th appearance in the finals having been semifinalists in 2014 and 2010 and third back in 1995. The squad comprises Mahdi Madan, Jaafar Abdul Kader, Mohammed Habib, Hussain Al Sayyad, Mahdi Saad, Mohammed Mirza, Salah Abdul Jaleel, Mohammed Abdul Hussain, Bilal Basham, Sadiq Ali, Hassan Al Samaheji, Mahmood Abdul Qader Ali, Ali Hussain, Ali Abdul Qader, Hassan Shehab Al Fardan, Ali Mirza, Ali Al Khazna, Mohammed Al Maqabi and Ahmed Al Maqabi.

In other group action, Saudi Arabia moved to second place in the standings with a 34-20 victory over China after leading at halfway 16-8 and UAE went to third after coming back from 12-16 down at half-time to win 27-23. With one round of group matches remaining,Bahrain (8 points) are top followed by Saudi Arabia (7), UAE (5), Iran (4), Lebanon (0) and China (0).

Today’s action in Group A sees two-time winner Japan (2) take on Oman (2) at 4pm and followed by nine-time winner South Korea (2) and Syria (0) at 6pm, while Qatar (6) has a bye.