Lahore Blues seals the semifinal berth of National T20 cup
Faisalabad ousted Peshawar by 5 wickets while Lahore Blues defeated Rawalpindi region team by 7 wickets to qualify for the semifinals of National T20 cup played at Rawalpindi cricket stadium.
In the first match of the day, Lahore blues after winning the toss invited Rawalpindi team to bat. While Batting 1st Rawalpindi team set a target of 119 runs for Lahore Blues. Iftikhar Ahmed was the only batsman who scored a half century against Lahore blues. He scored an aggressive 60 runs in just 33 with 6 huge sixes. Zeeshan Malik played a shot cameo of 24 runs. None of the other batsman from Rawalpindi team moved into double figures and team falls on 118 runs in 17.4 overs. Atif Jabbar and Agha Salman took 3 wickets each from Lahore blues. Ali Shafiq and Khalid Usman got 2-2 wickets apart.
In Reply, with the healthy opening wicket partnership of Lahore blues batsman Lahore blues chased the target in 17.1 overs for the loss of only 3 wickets. Imam ul Haq scored 34 runs with 4 boundaries while Ahmed Shahzad hit 3 boundaries for his 27 runs and both the batsmen contributed 64 runs in 8.1 overs for the 1st wicket partnership. Agha Salman 34 and Hussain Talat 21 remains unbeaten. Left-arm spinner Mohammad Asghar got all 3 wickets for Rawalpindi for 13 runs in 4 overs.
118 runs never enough for Lahore blues to chase and easily won the match by 7 wickets and through to the semifinal of the tournament. Agha Salman for his all-round performance declared man of the match.
In the second match of the day, Faisalabad after winning the toss elected to field. Peshawar while batting 1st were bowled out on 139 runs in 19.5 overs. Peshawar team captain Rafatullah Mohmand made quick 32 runs in just 12 balls with 3 fours and 3 sixes. Obaidullah 29 and Mohammad Imran 18 were the top scorers for Peshawar. Taj Wali took 3 wickets while Imran Khalid and Saeed Ajmal got 2. Fahim Ashraf and Yasir Shah got 1 wicket each.
Faisalabad achieved the target on the last ball with a huge hit 6 by Imran Khalid. Sahibzada Farhan and Gauhar Ali started the innings for Faisalabad and they added 50 runs partnership in 7.5 overs. Farhan scored 47 runs while Gauhar scored 30 runs. Faheem Anwar 17 and Imran Khalid 11 remains unbeaten and won the match for Faisalabad on the last ball of 20th over. Sohail Khan took 2 wickets for Peshawar while Kashif Bhatti and Kamran Ghulam got 1 wicket each. Sahibzada Farhan of Faisalabad Region was declared man of the match.
Brighto Paints Presents Cool & Cool National T20 Cup 2017-2018 Points Table
Sr# | Teams | Played | Won | Loss | NR | Points | RR |
1 | Lahore Blues | 7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 0.400 |
2 | Lahore Whites | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 1.010 |
3 | Faisalabad | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 0.508 |
4 | Karachi Whites | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 | -0.041 |
5 | FATA | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 5 | -0.332 |
6 | Islamabad | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 5 | -0.335 |
7 | Peshawar | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 3 | -0.405 |
8 | Rawalpindi | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 3 | -0.647 |