In-form Rashid lies second at halfway stage in Asian Tour event in Dhaka

India's Rashid Khan continued his fine form and fired a bogey-free 64 in the afternoon wave to grab the second spot on at the Bangabandhu Cup Golf Open here Thursday. Rashid, who won a PGTI event in Bangladesh, though in Chittagong and finished tied 10th at the Hero Indian Open, also won on Indian Tour in Mumbai last December. He carried on his form, to move to 12-under 130 and was three shots behind Tour rookie Sadom Kaewkanjana of Thailand, who is making his first start this year on Asian Tour.

Sadom stole the limelight after carding his personal-best round of a nine-under-par 62 to storm to the top of the leaderboard. Indians had a good day at the Bangladesh capital as 10 of the 17 Indians, who teed up made the halfway cut.

Young Viraj Madappa, who had his breakthrough win last year, carded five-under 66 to move to tied fourth alongside local hero Siddikur Rahman (68) and Japan's Mikumu Horikawa (67) at eight-under. Jeev Milkha Singh, whose patchy form and injuries have seen him drop out of 2000 in world rankings, made the cut with a fine second round that included a stretch of five straight birdies in his 67. He is tied 40th.

Two other Indians, Ajeetesh Sandhu (66) and Karandeep Kochhar (67) were tied 11th at six-under 136, while other Indians making the cut were Veer Ahlawat (69) at tied 22nd, Udayan Mane (69) at tied 29th, Akshay Sharma (68) at tied 36th, Aman Raj (74), Honey Baisoya (70) and Jeev (67) at tied 40th. Abhijit Chadha (69) squeezed in at tied 61st, while Chiragh Kumar, Aadil Bedi, OP Chouhan, Arjun Prasad and M Dharma missed the cut, Khalin Joshi withdrew on account of an injury.

Rashid, who has two Asian Tour wins, said, "It was a good round. The way I started was great. I missed the greens on my first three holes but managed to make up and downs for pars. Made a really long putt for birdie on fifth. I think it was about a 20-footer. I carried on that good momentum and birdied sixth and seventh and made another one on ninth to turn in four-under. "I made some good putts after the turn. Just rolled past the hole. I hit it to about two-feet on the 13th and made another birdie there. Made up and down for birdies on 14th too. Hit one or two bad shots but I recovered really well." PTI Cor SSC SSC

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