KARACHI: Zone-I and Zone-VI emerged winners on Thursday in their fifth-round fixtures of the PCB Regional Inter-district Under-19 (Karachi Region) Cricket Tournament here on Thursday.

Zone-I comfortably defeated bottom-placed Zone-VII by seven wickets at the TM Ground, while Zone-VI crushed Zone-IV by a clinical nine-wicket margin at the UBL Sports Complex with both winning teams securing nine points apiece.

Zone-III, meanwhile, missed a great chance of topping the seven-team standings when Zone-V earned a 37-run lead on the first innings in the drawn game at the Landhi Gymkhana Ground.

Ashar Qureshi was Zone-V’s star performer with a splendid knock of 134, which was spiced with 22 boundaries, to help his side collect 265-7 in the allotted 70 overs.

Paceman Anas Hameed Qazi picked up six wickets for 84 runs.

Imran Shah, who made 95 on Wednesday, then scored 46 as Zone-III batted out the remaining time to collect 93-3 in their second innings.

Zone-VII denied Zone-I winning by innings when they reached 164 all out after following on. Slow left-armer Ahmed Farooq snared six wickets for 62 runs.

Scores and results on Thursday (final day of two):

Fifth round:

At TMC Ground, Karachi: Zone-I beat Zone-VII­­­­ by seven wickets.

ZONE-I 251-9 declared in 60 overs (Usama Butt 64, S.M. Shaheer 47, Mohammad Zubair 39; Khafid-un-Nabi 5-25, Mohammad Alam 2-27) and 51-3 in 13 overs (Ahmed Iqbal 22 not out; Ikram-ul-Haq 2-15); ZONE-VII 136 in 55.2 overs (Muhammad Usman 53, Mamnoon Imtiaz 22, Mohammad Kashif 17; Ahmed Kabir 4-19, Syed Amin 3-14) and 164 in 51.2 overs (Talib Hussain 39, Mohammad Kashif 38, Mohammad Usman 34 , Shahid Nisar 23; Ahmed Farooq 6-62 Syed Amin 3-31).

At Landhi Gymkhana Ground, Karachi: Match drawn.

ZONE-III 228-8 in 70 overs (Imran Shah 95, Mubashir Ahmed 32; Mohammad Zahid 4-69, Ashar Qureshi 2-79) and 93-3 24 overs (Imran Shah 46; Ashar Qureshi 2-8; ZONE-V 265-7 in 70 overs (Ashar Qureshi 134, Hyder Ali 26, Arsalan Tariq 28; Anas Hameed Qazi 6-84).

At UBL Sports Complex, Karachi: Zone-VI beat Zone-IV by nine wickets.

ZONE-IV 99 in 49 overs (Mohammad Daniyal 30 not out, Zaryab Khan 21; Ali Umar 5-45, Mohammad Tariq Khan 3-11, Hasan Mahmood 2-23) and 58 in 23.1 overs (Sohaib bin Tariq 18; Ali Umar 4-28, Badar Qureshi 2-0, Ata Khan 2-6); ZONE-VI 135 in 47.3 overs (Abdul Basit 30, Arsalan Wasim 30, Ata Khan 26; Syed Maaz Ali 5-55, Daniyal Naveed 3-48) and 23-1 in 4.3 overs (Arsalan Wasim 15 not out).

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2017