Hyderabad Hawks stun Lahore Eagles

LAHORE Hyderabad Hawks stunned Lahore Eagles by seven wickets in the Faysal Bank National T20 Cup here at the Gaddafi Stadium on Tuesday. Azeem Ghumman played a pivotal role in his teams win by scoring a half century along with Sharjeel Khan, Rizwan Ahmed and Aqeel Anjum in achieving the score of 177 runs for six set by Eagles. Eagles captain Taufeeq Umar won the toss and decided to bat and then pileed up 177 runs. Taufeeq held the crease at the one end by making unbeaten 78 runs when wickets kept tumbling on the other end. Only Junaid Zia gave some support to his captain with his brisk 35 off 12 balls which included two fours and four sixes. Test opener Imran Farhat just got 14 runs while Azhar Ali and Ali Azmat were the other players who reached double figures. Lal Kumar, Zahid Mahmood and Ali Talpur shared two wickets each but not without paying huge price in shape of runs. All the Hawk bowlers conceded enough runs. Azeem Ghumman timed nine fours and two sixes to break the tempo of Lions bowlers and went on to make 93 for the opening wicket with Sharjeel. Later, when Sharjeel went back Faisal Athar retired due to injury and Naumal Ali fell victim to Ali Azmat, who took two wickets, Ghumman got another partner in Rizwan. But after reaching his 59, Ghumman too went back to the pavilion on the bowling of Kashif Siddiq. From then on Rizwan 39 and Aqeel 33 took charge of the situation and completed the score in 19.4 overs reaching 180 runs with seven wickets in hand. Eagles attack led by Mohammad Khalil, Junaid Zia, Azhar Attari and Imran Farhat remained wicketless and only Azmat and Siddiq could able to share three wickets among them.

ePaper - Nawaiwaqt