KARACHI: Nishtar Club and Askari Alphas won their last fixtures to cruise into semi-finals of the 12th National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Cup basketball tournament at the Arambagh floodlit court here on Saturday evening.

Both Nishtar Club and Askari Alphas won their matches in contrasting styles. While the former rallied to whip Arambagh Club 49-40 to top group ‘B’, the latter brushed aside Rayden Hawks 62-38 to finish as runners-up.

Bounce Club and Neighbourhood Club have already made it to the last-four stage from group ‘A’.

The old rivalry between Nishtar-Arambagh surfaced again as the match was marred by attitude problems of players with the umpires.

Playing neck-and-neck, the two teams were tied 12-all in the first quarter while Nishtar won the second 15-11 to earn a 27-23 lead at half time.

Again, the third quarter saw the two outfits fighting for each and every point to level eight-all in the third quarter. Nishtar availed more scoring chances as compared to Arambagh in the fourth quarter to win 14-9.

Talha Amjad Ali and Ali Chanzeb were the pick of their team members scoring 22 and 18, respectively.

Engr Zain-ul-Abedin and Raj Kumar were outstanding for the losers with 16 and 15 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, the trio of Samie, Bakhtiar and Shahmir guided Askari Alphas to an emphatic 62-38 victory over newly-raised outfit Rayden Hawks in an earlier match.

The winners, who dominated the entire match, led 24-8 at half time.

Samie top-scored with 21 and was followed by Bakhtiar (17) and Shahmir 14 for the winners.

Shahryar contributed 16 for the losers.

In the semi-finals, Bounce Club meet Askari Aplhas while Nishtar Club face Neighbourhood Club.

Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2017