Basketball club «Astana» starts their performance in the Kazakhstan Cup 2020 with a semifinal match against Aktau «Caspiy», which will be held in the capital on Tuesday, November 17, beginning at 19:30 Astana time.

Aktau “Caspiy” was the first rival of the capital team this season in the National League, and we have already reviewed this team and their roster in our previous articles. In the past two matches, “Astana” confidently outplayed rivals from Aktau — 87:66 and 99:44. After those games, “Caspiy” had held six more games in the National League and was able to achieve success only once, beating the “Almaty Legion”. At the same time, the Aktau team lost three times to the same “Legion” and two times lost to “Barsy Atyrau”.

It is important to note that according to the terms of the regulations for the Cup of Kazakhstan, players who cannot apply into the National Team of Kazakhstan then do not have a right to participate in the tournament, that is, in fact, only Kazakhstani players will participate. Thus, the leaders of the Aktau team the Americans Colin Doherty and Eugene Artison, as well as the Russian Denis Orlenko — will not be able to help their team in this game. Of course, we shouldn't forget that our foreign players will not compete for the Cup either. But in any case, our team is the favorite in this confrontation.
 
In addition to the game of “Astana” against “Caspiy”, which will be held on Tuesday, November 17 at 19:30 Astana time, on the same day, the second semifinal game will take place at 17:00 on the arena of the Saryarka cycle track in Nur-Sultan at 17:00 between “Barsy Atyrau” and Kostanay “Tobol”, which will determine the rival of our team in the final. Online broadcasts of matches will be available on the home page of our website.

ATTENTION! Due to the restrictive measures introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic, matches will be played without spectators.

Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the Tournaments section.

The team of the basketball club «Astana» will play with the Kostanay «Tobol» in the decisive match for the main trophy of the Kazakhstan Cup after the victory over «Caspiy» in the semifinals.

The score in this game was immediately opened by “Caspiy”, but Anton Ponomarev very quickly brought “Astana” into the lead. Our rivals from the very first minutes responded to the attacks of our team, but, at the same time, “Astana” efficiently played in defense and in ninety percent of cases the score on the scoreboard increased only in favor for our team. Maxim Marchuk made our lead double-digit with an accurate three-pointer, and three minutes later Andrey Litvinenko brought the lead to twenty points. The result of the first period was obvious — 33:9. 24 handicap points in 10 minutes instilled almost one hundred percent confidence in our team's victory, even though only one quarter had passed, but the confidence of our guys in this match was very strong. The second quarter did not make any changes to the game. Points by Robert Pan in the fourth minute allowed our lead to reach thirty points gap. “Caspiy” resisted as best as they could and in the middle of the quarter the increase in our advantage stopped for a time being, but then continued again. Maxim Marchuk set the final score in the first half of the game — 59:20 in favor of “Astana”.



The intrigue in the match had already “died” and no one believed that “Caspiy” would be able to change something in this game. But this confidence also influenced our team, but we weakened their grip after a fifteen-minute break, but still fully controlled the situation on the court. After Askar Maidekin's points, “Astana's” advantage exceeded forty points, and then quickly reached forty-six point mark. But the remaining eight minutes of the third quarter, the difference practically did not change. This game segment became the most ineffective for the capital team, although in 10 minutes they scored 18 points. Despite this, “Astana” increased its advantage by another 7 points — 77:31. In the fourth quarter, our team once again raised their pace, with which the rivals simply could not cope. For “Caspiy” the last 10 minutes were the most ineffective — they were able to add only six points to their account. But “Astana” was on fire. After Ruslan Aitkali and Maksim Marchuk's points, the difference exceeded fifty points. A few minutes later, Nikolay Bazhin's shoots allowed the capital's advantage to cross the line of sixty points, and thirty seconds later Andrey Litvinenko draws up a hundred. The finishing point in today's match was put by Robert Pan — 106:37.
 
Most productive:

• “Astana” — it should be noted that today Emil Rajkovic allowed all players to play equally — each player from today's roster had spent 20 minutes on the court (+/- a couple of minutes). And each player today had the scored points, rebounds and assists, and only two of them have no steals. The most effective and productive was Anton Ponomarev (20 points, 5 rebounds), Maxim Marchuk (14 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 5 steals) and Dmitry Gavrilov (11 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists). 
• “Caspiy” — Denis Degtyarev became the best among the opponents (9 points, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 block shot).

Consequences: “Astana” wins and confidently enters the final of the Cup, where they are expected by Kostanay “Tobol”, which outplayed “Barsy Atyrau” a little earlier.

Next match: the final match of the Kazakhstan Cup 2020 between “Tobol” and “Astana” will be held on November 19 at 19:30 at the cycle track “Saryarka”.

Detailed information about the tournament, tournament tables, schedule and match results are published in the Tournaments section.