KARACHI, Dec 15: Tapal CC came out on tops the 16th Karachi Gymkhana Ramazan cricket tournament, beating the star studded Paragon CC by nine runs in the final played at the Karachi Gymkhana ground Saturday.

The heroes of the Tapal victory were pacemen Imranullah and Shahid Iqbal and Saqib Zia, who thrashed 61 off 52 deliveries.

Winning the toss and deciding to bat, Tapal CC were bowled out for 176 in 24.4, with slow left-arm Shahid Ahmed had figures of three for 28. Leg-spinner Imran Farhat two for 25 off-spinner Shoaib Malik two for 31, lent him admirable support. Needing to score 177 runs for victory, Paragon were in for rude shock losing half their side with 42 runs on the board with Imranullah and Shahid running amok.

Qaiser Abbas had a fighting knock of 69 runs with three boundaries and two sixes being his principal strokes and although he was ably assisted by Mansoor Akhtar (26) and Rana Naveed ul Hassan (22), Paragon Construction failed to reach the winning target, falling short by only 10 runs.

Shahid (3- 31) and Man-of-the-Match Imranullah (3-34) bowled well for the winners.