National T20 Cup: KP, Northern Pakistan’s Consecutive Victories

Thanks to Fakhr Zaman’s excellent batting in the National T20 Cup, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) easily defeated Central Punjab by 29 runs and in the second match, Northern Pakistan defeated Balochistan by 7 wickets and acquired the tenth consecutive victory.

In the first match played in Multan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa captain Muhammad Rizwan won the toss and elected to bat first.

Fakhr Zaman and Mohammad Rizwan shared 45 runs for the first wicket and the captain returned to the pavilion after playing an innings of 23 runs.

Mohammad Hafeez, who performed well in the last match, was the second player to be dismissed for 17 off 77 balls.

Read more: T20 Cup: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa defeats Sindh, Balochistan defeats Central Punjab

Opener Fakhr Zaman scored 66 off 42 balls with 3 fours and 5 sixes to take the team’s score to 119, with Asif Afridi scoring 20 and Iftikhar Ahmed 14.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa scored 178 for 7 in the allotted overs and Shoaib Malik scored 27 off 24 balls without being dismissed.

From Central Punjab, Ahmed Bashir took the most 3 wickets.

Despite a good batting by Kamran Akmal, Central Punjab’s series of failures in the National T20 Cup could not be stopped and Abid Ali was dismissed for 5 in pursuit of the target.

In the second wicket partnership, Kamran Akmal and Abdullah Shafiq took the team’s score to 99. Kamran Akmal was dismissed for 47 runs.

Captain Saad Naseem and Rizwan Hussain scored 12 and 12 runs while Abdullah Shafiq scored 43 runs for 116 runs. Central Punjab’s chances of victory were nil.

The other Central Punjab batsmen were dismissed early and the entire team was dismissed for 149 runs.

For Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Asif Afridi, Arshad Iqbal, Junaid Khan and Wahab Riaz took 2.2 wickets each.

Fakhr Zaman was declared the best player of the match on a brilliant half-century.

Northern Pakistan’s victory over Balochistan

The 14th match of the National T20 Cup was played between Balochistan and Northern Pakistan in which Balochistan captain Haris Sohail won the toss and elected to bat first.

Imam-ul-Haq, who played a big inning for Balochistan in the last match, was dismissed for just two runs, while Owais Zia was dismissed for 14 and Bismillah Khan for 12 for a total of 38 runs.

Captain Haris Sohail led the team with difficulty and Akbar-ur-Rehman scored 38 runs to support them, during which both the batsmen completed the team’s century.

Haris Sohail scored 51 runs and was run out by Ali Imran. At that time, Balochistan’s score was 111 runs.

Akbar ur Rehman scored 38 runs and took the team to 139 runs. Emad was the last batsman to be bowled out for 18 runs.

With Ameed Asif and Osama Mir out for 8 and 6 runs respectively, Balochistan scored 156 for 6 in the allotted 20 overs.

Sohail Tanveer and Mohammad Amir took 2 wickets each for Northern.

In chase of an easy target, Ali Imran of Northern scored 2 runs and returned to the pavilion in the beginning. However, Umar Amin scored 30 and Rohail Nazir 42 runs and contributed a lot in the second wicket.

Umar Amin was dismissed for 58 while Rohail Nazir was dismissed for 86.

Asif Ali and Hamad Azam made a good partnership and scored 158 runs in the fifth ball of the 18th over to lead the team to victory by 7 wickets, both batsmen scored 41 and 30 runs respectively.

For Balochistan, Yasir Shah took two wickets and Khurram Shehzar one.