Sunday, 28/06/2009, marked the final day of the 7th Asian Netball Championship 2009 with the final match between Singapore and Sri Lanka at the Stadium Juara, Bukit Kiara. It proved to be a rather lopsided match, with Sri Lanka holding the obvious advantage with their over 6 foot GS, Tharjani Sivalingam. The result was Sri Lanka 77 and Singapore 48. This is Sri Lanka’s 4th title after winning the championship in 1990, 1997 and 2001.
To be realistic, though, I don’t think Sri Lanka would’ve won the game so easily without Tharjani (who contributed 74 out of Sri Lanka’s 77 goals). Singapore is one tough team to crack and they’ve played extremely well during the whole tournament.
Malaysia vs Sri Lanka (semi-final)
Photo thanks to jet_4orce flickr
There were only 3 teams out of the 9 participated who had the best chance of winning the tournament, namely Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Singapore (not in any particular order 
). Without the tall GS, though, I would say Sri Lanka’s chances of winning would not be so good.
But watching them played was really really inspiring. I wonder when would men’s netball in Malaysia be recognised by the Persatuan Bola Jaring Malaysia (Malaysia Netball Association) so that there would be similar tournaments for men.
Anyway, here are the results for the whole championship:
Losers’ pool semi-final:
Semi-final:
Top 8:
The finalists of this tournament qualified for the 2011 World Cup in Singapore. As the host, however, Singapore automatically qualified. So even though Malaysia got 3rd place, we managed to get a place in the then tournament. Well done, girls!
