It took a phenomenal performance from the Indian team to clinch a historic gold medal in men's squash team event as they defeated Pakistan in the final at the Asian Games 2023 on Saturday. This was India's first goal medal after nine years with the last men's team category triumph coming way back in the 2014 Asian Games. The team of Saurav Ghosal, Mahesh Mangaonkar and Abhay Singh faced a huge task against Pakistan – a team who emerged victorious in their previous face-off in the competition. However, the Indian players showed tremendous resiliance to come back and clinch a memorable victory.
Mangaonkar faced off against Iqbal Nasir in the first match of the final and although he was able to put up a solid fight, the challenge proved too much for him. He went down fighting 0-3 (8-11, 3-11, 2-11) in the match to hand Pakistan an early advantage.
However, the lead was short-lived as Sourav Ghosal quickly tied the clash with a win over Muhammad Asim. The veteran squash player was trailing 1-5 in the first game but came back strongly to secure 10 consecutive points for the win. He ended up clinching the match 3-0 (11-5, 11-1, 11-3) to set up a brilliant final match-up.
Abhay Singh went face-to-face with Noor Zaman and it was a tough challenge for the youngster. The match went down to the wire but despite trailing 2-1, Abhay showed grit to come back and ultimately win the close-fought encounter 3-2(11-7, 9-11, 7-11, 11-9, 12-10 ).