Monday, December 3, 2012

Stags, Lions, Stallions stay unbeaten in Faysal Bank T20 Cup




By AM Khan

LAHORE, Pakistan (TheSportsNEXT) December 3, 2012: The debutant Bahawalpur Stags continued their rich vein of form Monday as they joined Lahore Lions and defending champions Sialkot Stallions as the unbeaten teams in the Faysal Bank T20 Cup 2012 being played in Lahore.


Bahawalpur Stags (153/8 in 19.3) defeated a strong Karachi Dolphins (152/6 in 20) by two wickets, Lahore Eagles (162/8 in 20) beat Peshawar Panthers (86/8 in 20) by 76 runs, Abbottabad Falcons (120/8 in 19.5) beat Islamabad Leopards (116/8 in 20) by two wickets, Faisalabad Wolves (101/2 in 16.1) beat Hyderabad Hawks (97/8 in 20) by eight wickets, Lahore Lions (182/4 in 20) beat Multan Tigers (152/5 in 20) by 30 runs, and Sialkot Stallions (112/2 in 16.4) defeated Karachi Zebras (111/5 in 20) by eight wickets on Monday.

Lahore teams registered victories in their respective matches on the day three of the Faysal Bank Twenty20 Cricket Tournament here at the two different venues.

Man of the match Umar Akmal led Lahore Lions to an impressive victory over Multan Tigers in the fifth match of the day here at the Bagh-e-Jinnah ground.

Lahore Lions won the toss and decided to bat first. Nasir Jamshed and Ahmed Shahzad took a brilliant start and scored 59 runs in the first wicket partnership. Nasir fall prey of Kashif Naved when he was at 21. Then wicketkeeper stylish batsman Kamran Akmal joined aggressive opener Ahmed Shahzad and both the players played extremely well and added important 52 runs. Rahat Ali was the bowler who broke the second-wicket partnership and bowled Kamran on 31 runs runs. Opener Ahmed Shahzad played a responsible innings and remained on the crease till the 19th overs. He played brilliant shorts to every corner of the ground and remained the top scorer for the winners as he collected 68 runs. He was dismissed by Zulfiqar Babar in the very first delivery of the 19th over. Another leading player of the Lahore Lions was Umar Akmal who remained unbeaten on 55 runs in his just 21-ball innings in which he slammed five fours and four sixes. Abdul Razzaq could manage to score only two runs as he was run out by Gulraiz Sadaf. Lahore Lions total score at the end of their innings was 182 runs for the loss of four wickets in 20 overs.

Chasing the target of 183 runs, Multan Tigers started their innings well and score 48 runs in their first-wicket stand but then Wahab Riaz of Lions took the first wicket of Tigers when he dismissed Zain Abbas on 19 runs. Gulriaz Sadaf then joined the opener Sohaib Maqsood and added 14 runs for the second wicket partnership as Sohaib was caught and bowled by Mustafa Iqbal at the score of 35 runs. The third-wicket partnership of Multan Tigers proved very successful as Gulraiz and Saeed Anwar Junior played brilliant innings and kept on clicking the scoreboard. At that time, it seemed that Tigers will conquer the Lions but Lions captain M Hafeez roared on Gulraiz and showed him pavilion at the score of 38 runs. Lions’ bowler kept on momentum and got two more wickets restricting the Tigers at the score of 142 runs.

Umar Akmal for his superb and aggressive batting show was named best player of the match.

At LCCA ground, Lahore Eagles thrashed Peshawar Panther by 76 runs. Imran Farhat was hero of the Lahore Eagles as he smashed superb 45-ball 68 runs. The other good striker for the Eagles was Azhar Ali who made 26 runs with the help of three fours. Waqar Ahmed (3-36) and Aslam Qureshi (2-25) bowled well for the Panther. M Khalil and Saad Nasim destroyed the Panther batting line up by grabbing two wickets each and restricted them to paltry 86-8 in 20 overs.

In other matches of the day, Bahawalpur Stags defeated Karachi Dolphins by two wickets at Bagh-e-Jinnah ground. Man of the match Imran Ullah of Bahawalpur Stags played powerful innings of 48 runs to lead his team to victory.

Mir Azam of Abbottabad Falcons steered his team to two-wicket victory over Islamabad Leopards here at the Gaddafi Stadium. Islamabad Leopards scored 116-8 in 20 overs with Amad Wasim scoring 45 runs. Amjad Waqas grabbed 3-21 and Khalid Usman 2-25. Abbottabad Falcons chased the target in the last over of the match. Mir Azam was hero of Abbottbad with his 59 runs while Younas Khan was unbaten on 38 runs.

Faisalabad Wolves overwhelmed Hyderabad Hawks by eight wickets here at the LCCA ground. Hyderabad Hawks could manage to score 98 runs for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs with Rizwan Ahmed scoring 41 runs. Magical bowler Saeed Ajmal chipped in with two wickets along with two wickets each by Khurram Shahzad and Asad Ali. Faisalabad Wolves achieved the victory target in just 16.1 overs Farrukh Shahzad smashing impressive 51-ball 57 runs laced with nine fours. He was ably assisted by Naveed Latif who remained unbeaten on 34 runs.

Sialkot Stallions won by 8 wickets.

Shoaib Malik superb half century helped Sialkot Stallions to score an impressive triumph over Karachi Zebra here at the Gaddafi Stadium. Karachi Zebra could manage 111 runs for the loss of five wickets in 20 overs with Daniyal Ahsan scoring unbeaten 24 runs and Faisal Iqbal, Ramiz Aziz and Ramiz Raja Jr 21 runs each. Adeel Malik remained successful bowler for the losers with three wickets for 19 runs. Shoaib Malik played captain inning and remained unbeaten on 50 runs as his team achieved the target in just 16.4 overs for the loss of just two wickets. Haris Sohail also played well and made unbeaten 34 runs.

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