LAHORE,  Oct 9: Pacemen Azhar Abbas and  Abdur Rauf shared eight wickets to help Sui Gas restrict defending champions Pakistan Customs to 204 on opening day of  the Patron’s Trophy  Grade-I match at Gaddafi Stadium Tuesday.

However, Customs hit back immediately to reduce Sui Gas to nine for two at stumps with both openers Ali  Hussain (3) and Mohammad Hafeez (4) gone.

Put into bat first by the Sui Gas skipper Asad Iqbal,  Customs made a poor start as they lost openers with 19 on the board, including the prized wicket of the in-form Shadab Kabir for a duck in the very first over.

Imran Mohammad and Asim Kamal retrieved the position to a large extent by putting on 64 in 88 minutes for the third wicket. Imran, son of ex-Test opening batsman Sadiq Mohammad who is incidentally standing in this game as an umpire, scored 42 off 6 balls  with  three boundaries  while  the left-handed Asim Kamal contributed 39 off 106 balls with six fours.

Customs captain Aamir Bashir (31 off 119 balls, five fours) and Tariq Haroon (24) were the only other batsmen to cross 20.

Abdur Rauf, who captured 14 wickets in the defeat against ADBP last week, sent down 22.1 overs to claim four for  57. He was forced to leave the ground with some of injury. Azhar Abbas  bowled 21 overs to take four for 50. Sui Gas skipper Mohammad Hussain picked two for 27.