After successive successes in the South Asian Games and then the Commonwealth Shooting Championships early this year, all the focus was on the Bangladeshi golden pair of Sharmin Akter Ratna and Sadia Sultana in the XIX Common-

wealth Games, but the duo disappointed miserably with their performance at the Dr Kami Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi yesterday.

Ratna and Sadia finished fifth out of eight teams in the 10m air rifle pair event with a poor score of 784, six less than the score that earned them gold medal in the Commonwealth Shooting Championships in February at the same venue.

Malaysian pair Taibi Nur Suryani and Nur Ayuni Halim broke the Indian dominance at the shooting range to win the gold scoring 793 out of 800, well ahead of Singapore's silver medal-

ists Xiang Wei Jasmine and Jian Huan Cheng, who together shot 790. Indian pair Suma Siddharth and Kavitha Yadav had to be content with a bronze medal scoring785.

After arriving in India on September 30, both the Bangladeshi shooters got enough time to practise at the match venue, but yesterday's performance was nowhere near what they had been scoring in practice sessions. They even failed to get closer to their best scores they had earlier scored.

Ratna, who once shot a perfect 400 in practice, scored only 394, four less than her best score while Sadia was at a lowly 390, which is also four less than her best set during the SA Games on home soil.

Both Rama and Sadia made a frustrating start scoring 97 and 96 respectively in the first of four series. However, Rama recovered from the poor start scoring 99 and 100 in the last two series and finished her four series inside half-an-hour, but Sadia found points hard to come by and finished

10 less than 400.

"If one of us could do well, then we could have expected a medal," said a weeping Ratna, who was being consoled by Asif Hossain Khan. "Things were in favour of us, but I don't know why we started badly," she added.

Rama and Sadia seemingly lost their confidence after having seen the competitors from Malaysia and Singapore as the former claimed that she wasn't aware of their participation.

After winning two gold, the Rama-Sadia pair was considered the best in the 10m air rifle field. But yesterday's performance showed that Sadia suffered from lack of confidence. Rama also thinks Sadia still needs some time to get over (the defeat).

Both Ratna and Sadia will compete in the individual 10m air rifle event today, but they were not ready to talk about Sunday's event.