Late NWFP rally makes Sindh advantage slip a little
Monday, February 11, 2008
By Gul Hameed Bhatti
KARACHI: After putting the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in first, Sindh achieved the objective of restricting the visitors to a small first innings score of 203 runs all out, on the opening day of their four-day, first round 2007-08 Pentangular Cup cricket championship match, here at the National Stadium on Sunday.
In much colder conditions than the seaside metropolis of Karachi generally encounters, Sindh captain Shahid Afridi decided to take first use of the early freshness of the National Stadium track and almost managed to bowl out the NWFP line-up for a total of just over a 100 runs.
This intention just slipped through his fingers at the end, as the last two NWFP wickets added 98 runs to a pathetic score of 105 for eight wickets down. Yet, the spirited reply that Sindh were off to, 60 for one, augurs well for the home side as the pitch continues to ease up and is certain to aid the batsmen from the second day onwards.
Sohail Khan, the top wicket-taker of the recent Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Championship with a haul of 65, appeared to have picked up from where he left in late December when he sent the stumps cartwheeling as the NWFP opener Yasir Hameed (5) and higly-rated youngster Riaz Kail (0) returned to the pavilion with only 11 runs on the board.
Rafatullah Mohmand (23) and skipper Younis Khan (12) lifted the NWFP morale a bit, but the Sindh bowlers continued to strike. Sohail took two more wickets to finish with figures of 4-65 in 18.5 overs and was once on a hat-trick. The only batsman to resist in a score of 105-8 was Adnan Raees, whose 30 runs came off 64 balls with six fours.
Left-arm leg-spinner Aslam Qureshi, who bats right-handed, then joined hands with pace bowler Shakeel-ur-Rehman in a morale-boosting ninth-wicket stand of 69 runs.
The 25-year-old Shakeel surpassed his previous highest of 32 with an excellent 45, off 94 balls with eight fours. Aslam’s contribution was 29 runs off 90 balls with four boundaries. Last man Fazl-e-Akbar took 18 deliveries to hit an unbeaten 16, that included two fours and a six.
Leg-spinner Danish Kaneria and Shahid Afridi too got into the wicket-taking act picking up two each, at a personal cost of 39 and 41 runs, respectively.
With Khurram Manzoor perishing early as Sindh began their innings, the experienced Naumanullah immediately got into characteristic action. His unbeaten 33 has taken only 42 balls to score in just over an hour with six hits to the rope.
The season’s Pentangular Cup championship is being contested among five teams, as the name suggests. Yesterday, Punjab started their match against Federal Area at Gaddafi Stadium Lahore.
Balochistan are the fifth team in the competition. They will play their first match on February 22, when the tournament resumes after an eight-day break from February 14 to 21 due to the General Elections in the country.
