Joshi & Co shine but Itthipat keeps lead at Panasonic Open India

Nine Indians, including defending champion Khalin Joshi and in-form Rashid Khan, fired a matching five-under 67 to share the fifth spot with two others at the smog-hit Panasonic Open India, which was reduced to a three-day affair on Friday.

The first round of the Panasonic Open India resumed at 11am with players, who were scheduled for the afternoon rounds on the opening day, beginning their challenge at the Classic Golf and Country Club here.

Joshi and Rashid along with Karandeep Kochhar, Kshitij Naveed Kaul and Vikrant Chopra joined Shiv Kapur, Arjun Das, M Dharma and Shankar Das at tied fifth.

Hung Chien-yao of Chinese Taipei and Wang Wei-Lun are the non-Indians in the group tied at fifth.

The presence of nine Indians in Top-15 increases the chances of an Indian winner for the eighth time in nine years of Panasonic Open India.

At the top, Thailand's Itthipat Buranatanyarat, who shot a sizzling eight-under 64 on Thursday, continued to held on to the lead.

Indonesia's Danny Masrin, sole second on Thursday, was joined by Australian veteran Terry Pilkadaris, a three-time winner on Asian Tour, and Myanmar's Ye Htet Aung, an Asian Tour Qualifying School graduate who also plays on the Asian Development Tour.

With weather forced delayed starts on Thursday and Friday, the Asian Tour reduced the event to 54 holes and the cut will now fall after 36 holes.

Joshi, who earned his maiden Asian Tour event at Panasonic Open India last year, had a good day in office.

Starting from the first, Joshi had seven birdies against two bogeys on ninth and eleventh, but he finished birdie-birdie.

"I'm not really happy with my round, to be honest. I just played five holes well and the rest of it was mostly scrambling. I'm happy with my score but I have a lot more to do as far as my long-game so I am headed straight to the range immediately.

"I'm defending my crown at a course where I've done well in the past with a title under my belt. So I'm quite confident. It was nice to finish with birdies on the last two holes."
"The bogey put a break on my progress. Even though I had two more birdies with long putts, I lost the rhythm on the back-nine."