Calcutta, Nov 6: Unfancied Lebanon made clever use of ball possession and pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the 15th Asian Basketball Confederation Championships thus far. They stunned defending champions China 59-54 in a thrilling Group A league match at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here on Friday.Rotating the ball cleverly, they induced the Chinese to commit fouls and in the process, earned free throws for themselves and converted them for numerical superiority. Their conversion rate was 70 per cent. Fahed Rony, Fakhry William and Hantas Mohammed showed how badly the Chinese underestimated them.Lebanon led 28-27 at the half-time but went from strength to strength in the second session. They relied on the sharp-shooting abilities of Rony (17 points) and William (13) while Hantas Mohammed used the screen to good effect.Yao Ming was the highest scorer with 15 points for China while Zhou Xinzin and Li Donglian tallied 11 and 10 points respectively. China will now have to beat Hong Kong in their nextleague match tomorrow to stay in competition.The most impressive and compact side on show was Japan who prevailed over Philippines in a Group C league match 81-65.Chinese Taipei began their Group D engagements with a bang. They became the first team to cross the 100 mark while defeating Kazakhstan 106-76 while Kuwait scored over Bangladesh 67-21 in Group C. In another Group B league match, Pakistan managed to match a superior Qatar for all of seven minutes with the score at 9-all. Thereafter, it was Qatar all the way. They trounced Pakistan 87-32.In another match, Kuwait bulldozed Bangladesh 67-21 (Half time 33-10).
