The race for the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final heated up with no.1 and no.3 placed teams Sialkot and Peshawar, respectively \u2013 after six rounds \u2013 bagged wins on the seventh round\u2019s day three, while no.2 Faisalabad are faced with a challenge to stop Islamabad from a come-from-behind triumph on last day.
\nPeshawar bagged a crucial 85-run victory over fifth-placed Lahore Whites at the Diamond Cricket Ground in Islamabad, stirring up the race for the tournament final with their fourth victory on the back of Test off-spinner and player of the match Sajid Khan\u2019s match figures of 10-142.
\nLahore Whites, in pursuit of a 253-run target, were bowled out for 167 in 41.2 overs as Sajid registered his 21st first-class five-for matching his first innings outing of 5-82 in 30 overs with 5-60 in 16.2 overs.
\nAt one point, Whites slipped to 31-5 before no.7 batter Khawaja Mohammad Abdullah (52, 92b, 4x4s, 1\u00d76) and opening batter Ali Zaryab (43, 79b, 6x4s, 1\u00d76) churned 56 runs for the sixth wicket before the duo was dismissed by Sajid, who then cleaned up the tail as well.
\nEarlier, Peshawar resumed their second innings from overnight score of 108-2 in 33 overs and a lead of 123 runs before another Test spinner Noman Ali\u2019s 33rd first-class five-for (33-3-112-5) reined them in at 237 all out in 74 overs. Noman finished with nine wickets in the match.<\/p>\n
Opening batter Israrullah (76, 125b, 8x4s, 2x6s) and wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Haris (45, 96b, 5x4s) were the main contributors for Peshawar.
\nSialkot cemented their position on the top of the table by handing Multan a thumping 204-run defeat, while also registering their fourth win in the tournament, on penultimate day of the game at the Marghzar Cricket Stadium in Islamabad.
\nRequiring another 288 runs to win and 103-2 at the start of the day, Multan again fell prey to Sialkot\u2019s spin web as off-spinner Hamza Nazar (19-1-64-5) \u2013 who bagged his maiden first-class five-for \u2013 and Mehran Mumtaz (22-7-70-4) combined to take nine wickets.
\nSialkot just took 24 overs on day three to wrap up Multan\u2019s innings for 186 having faced 54 overs as they lost eight wickets for 83 runs. Mehran returned a bag of nine wickets in the match and was named player of the match.
\nFata reaped a crushing innings and 86-run win over Bahawalpur to bag their second triumph in the tournament at the Imran Khan Cricket Stadium in Peshawar. On day three, Bahawalpur began following-on after incurring a 250-run first innings deficit on day two, and were bundled out for 164 in 41.1 overs.
\nFor Fata, pacer Sirajuddin and Hayatullah picked up three wickets each, while player of the match Khushdil Shah and Asif Afridi dismissed two batters each. Off-spinner Hayat ended up with nine wickets in the match.<\/p>\n
Islamabad\u2019s Shamyl Hussain struck an unbeaten rapid century (101 not out, 111b, 17x4s, 1\u00d76) to take his team to 159-1 at stumps against Faisalabad in pursuit of a 449-run target setting up a tantalizing day four at the Abbottabad Cricket Stadium.
\nThe left-hander \u2013 who has so far peeled off five first-class centuries in his 18 outings including three in the ongoing tournament \u2013 also put on a 159-run opening stand with Abdul Faseeh (57, 121b, 8x4s) providing their team a head-start in the chase.
\nEarlier, Faisalabad started their second innings on day three with eight runs on the board and 235 runs ahead of Islamabad before declaring on 221-2 in 33.3 overs courtesy opening batter Hasan Raza\u2019s (106 not out, 103b, 13x4s) third century in the tournament and seventh in first-class career.
\nHasan also shared a 99-run stand with Asim Ali Nasir (42, 47b, 6x4s, 1\u00d76) and an unbeaten 93-run stand with first innings centurion Muhammad Awais Zafar (52 not out, 39b, 4x4s, 2x6s).
\nShan Masood\u2019s highest first-class score (250 not out, 234b, 28x4s, 6x6s) in his 191st game in the format helped no.4 placed Karachi Blues set up a 519-run target for Abbottabad at the Shoaib Akhtar Cricket Stadium in Rawalpindi.
\nKarachi Blues resumed day three with overnight score of 202-3 with Shan at 114 not out, only to declare at 451-5 in 82 overs as Shan shared a 181-run stand with no. 6 batter Rameez Aziz (78, 81b, 7x4s, 4x6s).
\nIn turn, Abbottabad\u2019s skipper Kamran Ghulam (47 not out, 100b, 5x4s, 1\u00d76) held the fort after walking in at 80-2 as his team went to stumps 147-4 in 49 overs, losing Zain Ishaq (37, 73b, 5x4s, 2x6s) and Umair Badshah (34, 39b, 6x4s) in thirties to left-arm spinner Kashif Bhatti.
\nMohammad Asghar then dismissed the experienced Mohammad Suleman for 14 before Ahmed Khan (5 not out) accompanied his skipper to close of play unscathed as they required another 372 runs and possibly 90 more overs to survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The race for the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final heated up with no.1 and no.3 placed teams Sialkot and Peshawar, respectively \u2013 after six rounds \u2013 bagged wins on the seventh round\u2019s day three, while no.2 Faisalabad are faced with a challenge to stop Islamabad from a come-from-behind triumph on last day. Peshawar bagged a crucial 85-run …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89616,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89603\/revisions\/89616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}