Faysal Bank T20: Lions hunt down Wolves to clinch T20 Cup

Hafeez’s team seals victory on last ball in gripping final.

KARACHI:

Lahore Lions clinched a last-ball victory over defending champions Faisalabad Wolves in a thrilling final to win the Faysal Bank T20 Cup in Rawalpindi.

The three-wicket victory for Lions arrived on the final ball of the tournament with Imran Ali scoring the winning run.

Dubbed as a star-studded contest between the two heavyweights, Sunday’s final drew a full-house crowd at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.

It looked like a boring finale to the intriguing tournament after Wolves scored just 130 after opting to bat first but they staged a grand comeback to set an enthralling end.

Faisalabad restricted to 130-9

With bowlers dominating the showdown, Wolves scored only 130-9 in the stipulated 20 overs.

Hafeez pairing up with fast bowler Aizaz Cheema earned an early breakthrough by removing Farrukh Shahzad to put the Wolves under pressure.

Left-handed opener Ali Waqas was the stand out performer for them with a brisk 63 from 52 balls, laced with five boundaries and four sixes.

Misbah who scored 27 from 33 deliveries was the second main contributor as rest of the batting struggled.

With Wolves on 123-5, Wahab Riaz shined in the penultimate over, giving just a single run while grabbing two wickets besides contributing in Imran Khalid’s run out dismissal in the same over.

The left-handed fast bowler finished with figures of 2 for 29, while Cheema (2-29) and Hafeez (2-20) also took a brace each.

Saim top scorer in successful chase

Lions started the run-chase aggressively before they lost opener Nasir Jamshed on the final ball of the second over.

They lost two more key wickets of Hafeez and Ahmed Shahzad, and were reeling at 46-3, bringing Wolves back into contention.

Player of the final was Saad Nasim, with an unbeaten 45. He and Umar Siddiq built an important 45-run partnership for the fourth wicket but the game was open due to the low run-rate.

Nasim continued to anchor the run-chase and contributed well in getting ten runs from Ehsan Adil’s over as Lions required 11 runs in the last over.

Riaz struck a boundary on the first ball of Asad Ali’s over that was followed by some quick running between the wickets.

In doing so, Riaz lost his wicket when Lions required four from three balls.

Saim scored three from two balls with Imran completing the job on the last ball.

Published in The Expres Tribune, February 17^th, 2014.

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