Dolphins skipper Sarfraz Ahmed scored an unbeaten half-century to guide his team to their first win in the Super8 T20 Cup. PHOTO: INP
Heavy showers had hampered the Dolphins’ first match against Lahore Lions, resulting in a point apiece for both teams. Dolphins now have three points, while Tigers lost both their games and therefore have no points.
Chasing 148, Dolphins lost their openers Rameez Raja (11) and Shahzaib Hasan (5) cheaply. However, Sarfraz steadied the ship and knocked five boundaries in his unbeaten 40-ball 50 to build a third-wicket partnership of 87 runs with Asad Shafiq, who scored 46 runs off 36 balls.
Muhammad Waqas was another key batsman who performed for Dolphins, scoring 24 off 13 balls studded with three sixes, while Tigers’ Aamer Yamin took two wickets, giving away 10 runs in the process as Sadaf Mehdi claimed one scalp for 25 runs.
Earlier, Tigers were restricted on 147 with a combined effort from the Dolphins’ bowlers as Muhammad Sami, Fawad Khan, Abdul Ameer and Faraz Ahmed took two wickets each, conceding 23, 29, 32 and 30 runs respectively.
Tigers’ captain Gulraiz Sadaf scored 40 off 41 balls, hitting two fours and one six with Yamin scoring 47 off 25 balls to build a 69-run partnership. However, the efforts went in vain as no other batsman was able to score for Tigers as Ahmed Rasheed, Yasir Butt and Baber were bundled out for 13, 13 and 14 runs respectively.
Man of the match and winning captain Sarfraz said, “We needed this win as the first match was washed away. Our bowlers did very well to help us in this victory. We had a slow start but the way Shafiq stood his ground on the crease with me and built the momentum with me.”
Meanwhile, losing captain Sadaf said that his team was lacking experienced batsmen and were not able to post a defendable total, while the bowlers fell weak at the wrong time.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 15th, 2015.
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