KARACHI:
A brilliant partnership between Humayun Farhat and Hasan Raza helped HBL register a large first-innings lead on day two against SBP to take full control of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Silver league final in Faisalabad’s Iqbal Stadium yesterday.
HBL resumed their innings on day two at 88-3 and added another 268 runs with the help of a 96-run partnership between Farhat and Raza.
SBP’s slow left-arm orthodox spinner Kashif Bhatti took two wickets in three overs to bring them back into the tie but some vital partnerships from the HBL tail frustrated SBP as Kamran Hussain made an impressive 76 before being caught in front of the wicket by Zafar Gohar. However, the lead had swelled to 194 by then.
Bhatti was the pick of the bowlers with 5-113 for SBP, as the most used bowler, Gohar, took 3-125 in 44.2 overs.
Aamer Yamin was dismissed by Abdur Rehman on the last ball of the day to leave SBP floundering on 6-1 in their second innings, still 188 runs behind if they are to make HBL bat again.
However, despite having a mountain to climb, SBP captain Usman Salahuddin is confident that his side will post a good total in the second innings as the pitch is now behaving much better and is easier to bat on. “In the first innings, the pitch had moisture which helped the spinners and our batsmen were bowled out,” he said. “We want to give a target of at least 160 runs. We have changed the batting order and have saved some of our best batsmen for the middle order. However we have to bat with responsibility in order to record a good lead.”
HBL’s first-innings lead means that a draw will be good enough for them to go through but with three days of play still remaining, a result seems overwhelmingly likely.
Not impressed
Former Test cricketer Jalaluddin is not all too impressed by the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy and said that he has not seen any new talent on display in this new format of first-class cricket. “The new format has brought down the standard of first-class cricket as the grounds, the management, the players and the schedule are all subpar,” he said in a damning indictment of the new league. “In the previous format, the departments and the regions played separately, and due to that, the departments had the best first-class cricketers who also played for their regions. Hence, the standard of both departmental and regional cricket was high.”
He further added that now the regions have just filled up the empty spots by substandard players. “Just playing in first-class cricket does not make him be of first-class level. He needs to have that much talent to play.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 5th, 2014.
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