Mubarak Al-Muraikhi

Finishing sixth in yesterday's first squad, Mubarak Al-Muraikhi of Qatar, opened with a sizzling 255 but just 1 pin ahead of Ryan Lalisang spurred on by a large crowd of local supporters with Malaysia's Daniel Lim a further 2 pins in third.

Photo Gallery: May 3, Men's Squad 2, Men's Overall after 2 blocks  

As the local favourite posted 230 in the second game, Lim matched strides for strides with 232 to share the lead followed by Muabarak 14 pins away in third. A disasterous 167 in the third by the Indonesia provided Lim the opportunity to grab the lead after knocking down 222.

The Malaysian held on to the lead until Muabarak recorded eleven strikes-in-a-row and looking set to shoot the championship's first perfect game. But the Qatari left a single pin standing to the disappointment of the spectators.

Mubarak did however, end the squad in the lead with an 8-game score of 1732 as Ryan recovered to snatch second spot with 1705. Daniel's pace dropped in the last two games to finish a creditable third on 1683 while Hussain Al-Suwaidi of UAE gave Asia the top 4 positions.

The 1732 from Mubarak moved him into the overall lead after the two blocks on a total of 3399. Hussain took second spot with 3364 while the stronger performance from the Indonesian also moved him up to third.

"I'm not exactly happy with my performance even though I'm in the overall lead," said the 33-year-old leader Mubarak, who won the 2007 H.H. Emir Cup, 2007 Bahrain Open and the 2007 Sinai Open. "I missed so many easy spares and that is why I'm not happy.

"I think the long oil helped me alot and I think I've to be very careful when we bowl four games on short oil tomorrow. If I can maintain my scores and then try to do better in the long oil, I beleive I will be able to make the top 8.

"I had two high games at the start of the second block but I'm disappointed as I had 1 bad game," said the Indonesian Ryan Lalisang. "The crowd did raise my spirit today but I think the different condition also helped a bit.

The men will end their final block of 8 games tomorrow at 3.30pm after the women complete theirs at 11.30am. The top 8 finishers from the grueling 24-games qualifying will advance to the two-game total pinfalls elimination knockout quarter-final the same evening.

The winners of the quarter-final rounds will proceed to the semi-final and finals on Monday, 5th May and all the matches will be televised LIVE on local television starting at 10.00am.

Photos by Terence Yaw.