ICRC National Disabled T20 Championship: Qureshi, Saleem star as Multan lift trophy

Visitors defeat Karachi by eight wickets at National Stadium to take maiden title home

KARACHI:

A half-century by skipper Matloob Qureshi and a four-wicket haul by man of the match Zubair Saleem guided Multan to their first-ever ICRC National Disabled T20 Championship title as they defeated Karachi by eight wickets in the final at the National Stadium of Karachi on Saturday.

Electing to bat first, Karachi managed 112-8 in their allotted 20 overs as Saleem claimed four scalps, while Muhammad Asif took two wickets along with Muhammad Haris and Majid Hussain taking one each. Rao Javed (33) was Karachi’s top scorer.

Chasing 113, Multan reached the target with 22 balls and eight wickets to spare as Qureshi, who has only one hand, smashed four boundaries in his 48-ball 57-run knock to build an opening 104-run partnership with Hussain, who made 46 off 41 balls while Noman Shabbir took two wickets.



Qureshi, who scored 217 runs from five matches, played outstandingly throughout the tournament and was declared the best batsman of the championship.

“Bringing the name of my city to this level is a great achievement for me, and winning the best batsman award gives me more confidence to improve further,” said Qureshi while talking to The Express Tribune. “Karachi are a strong team and played really well, but our bowlers were a bit stronger and crushed their top-order batmen early in the match, which restricted them to a low total.”

The 28-year-old also said that the competition in the tournament has increased drastically as compared to the last edition.



“Multan’s team was selected on pure merit out of 120 players who appeared in the trials. PDCA [Pakistan Disabled Cricket Association] official Muhammad Nizam along with selectors Saqib Ali and Khurram Butt made sure that the best players were selected,” he added. “Seven of the players in our team were debutants in the tournament and they have performed exceptionally well, which shows that there is a lot of hope for emerging players.”

Qureshi also revealed that companies had started taking notice of the disabled players as CEO Shama Ghee had signed him for their club, which was a big help financially.

Meanwhile, Karachi skipper Arif Richard rued that the pressure of playing in a final got the better of their team. “We were not able to defend our wickets due to pressure of playing in the final. Multan handled the pressure extremely well,” said Richard.



Karachi’s Noman Shabbir, who took 10 wickets in the tournament for 97 runs, was declared the best bowler of the tournament, while Multan’s Jahanzeb Tiwana was declared the best player for his 196 runs and seven wickets and Karachi’s Haroon Rasheed was declared the best fielder for his six catches.

The awards were presented by chief guest and Pakistan Cricket Board representative Salahuddin Ahmed Sallu along with ICRC Deputy Head of Delegation Jerome Alexander.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2015.

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