KARACHI, Oct 29: PIA were battling to avert innings defeat despite an error of judgement by reigning champions Pakistan Customs when stumps for the penultimate day’s session were drawn in Patron’s Trophy Grade-I match at the UBL Sports Complex Monday.

PIA, resuming at 102 for three while responding to Customs’ 461, were fired out for 175 with left-arm pacer Waqar Ahmad capturing four wickets in 10 balls on way to figures of six for 46.

Forced to follow-on, PIA were cruising nicely at 185 for no loss before finishing at 228 at the cost of top three batsmen in the last 40 minutes of play, mainly due to some wild shot selection.

PIA still require 59 runs to make Customs bat again and have skipper Asif Mujtaba and budding Faisal Iqbal at the crease with Sohail Jaffar to follow along with the tailenders.

While Customs will find the door ajar for an outright victory, initially they must be ruing the decision to force PIA to follow-on, particularly after demolition man Waqar Ahmad was suffering with high temperature and off-spinner Tabish Nawab not taking the field because of a shin injury.

Instead of batting for the second time which would have allowed more time for the bowlers to recover and lesser time for PIA to stage a recovery, they opted to field again with limited bowling options.

Consequently, the pedestrian bowling was canned all over the park by openers Ghulam Ali and Shoaib Mohammad who put on 185 for the first wicket in 203 minutes.

But after making a mockery of Customs bowling, Ghulam Ali, Sohail Mohammad and Mahmood Hamid threw all the hardwork down the drain with shots for which they deserve kicks in their pants.

Ghulam Ali, who scored 90 off 136 balls with 12 boundaries and six sixes, went for an extravagant cover drive despite the fact that a fielder was placed there who made no mistake in holding the simplest of catches.

Little later, Mahmood Hamid attempted an uppish drive and was held at covers after the ball rebounded from the back of the fielder at silly-point. PIA suffered a body blow when Shoaib, who scored 84 off 215 balls with eight fours and a six, was held smartly by Shadab Kabir at mid-wicket when he tried to pull Wasim Yousufi’s short-pitched off-spinner. Interestingly, Yousufi is a wicket-keeper who was bowling after Asim Kamal opted to stand behind the wickets.

Ghulam Ali and Shoaib deserves reprimand for not realizing the situation and threw away a chance to bail the team out of crisis. Mahmood should be pulled out for making an aggressive shot too early in the innings and particularly when just 20 minutes of play were left.

Watching a spineless PIA batting which desperately need blooding youngsters to reclaim their top status, it would have been interesting to see how they would have flared up had Waqar been fit.

The fast bowler virtually got in the skins of PIA batsmen and bowled with excellent pace on a wicket which had nothing for the pacers. It would not be wrong to say that he literally scared the batsmen with his pace as the batsmen took a stride back instead of coming on the front foot while tackling him.

The most commendable aspect of Waqar’s bowling was that he didn’t got overawed by the situation and continued to ball within the three sticks as evident from the fact that he clean bowled four batsmen. Two catch behind the wickets is a further proof of his accuracy and precise line and length.