KARACHI: The countdown will be over on Tuesday when the semi-final matchups are decided in the One-day Departmental Cup with five teams battling it out to join runaway leaders United Bank Limited (UBL) in the knockout round.

With Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) and the hapless National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) already out of the equation, the race intensifies further as Pakistan Television (PTV), Wapda, Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and defending champions Habib Bank Limited (HBL) all brace themselves for a tension-filled day of cricket.

So one can imagine the scenario here at the UBL Sports Complex and Hyderabad’s Niaz Stadium in which it’s a straightway dogfight with the winners of both last-round fixtures almost guaranteed to progress into Thursday’s last-four stage.

The situation at the NBP Sports Complex is more or less quite lucid given National Bank of Pakistan (NBP)’s pitiful sequence of six consecutive defeats with a seventh the most likely occurrence on the cards because third-placed Wapda definitely won’t be in the mood to show leniency to their latest opponents.

Ironically, Wapda squandered the chance of cementing their semi-final spot on Sunday when they were soundly beaten by the rampant UBL side at the latter’s home territory after skipper Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal along with paceman Waqas Maqsood all sat out the penultimate-round match in protest over interference from the department’s chairman, a retired lieutenant general, into team selection matters.

Wapda have far more class and flair to overpower NBP by a convincing margin to avoid a semi-final meeting with UBL, provided of course, Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) stop Pakistan Television (PTV) from winning the game in Hyderabad. The beauty of this fixture is that PTV could still qualify even as losers against SSGC if they don’t drop their current net run-rate of +0.605 drastically.

SSCG, on the other hand, don’t have the luxury of their rivals. The only way Umar Amin’s charges will earn qualification is to emerge victorious with a sufficient margin to finish either third or fourth in the final league-round standings. Currently, SSGC’s net run-rate of +0.722 is better than fifth-placed SNGPL (+0.078) and much superior than HBL’s -0.126.

If SSGC do lose out then they could only blame themselves since they were in with a golden opportunity of ending UBL’s run of victories had they hadn’t lost the last eight wickets for 30 runs in an inexplicable collapse to hand the bankers an unexpected 57-run success.

Therefore, Ahmed Shehzad and his men would be feeling overly anxious at this point in time because they cannot afford errors at all cost. Not only they have to beat SNGPL but also ensure they win by a big enough margin to move from sixth to the much-needed fourth placing.

UBL, meanwhile, ideally would be wanting to make it seven wins on the trot whe they face KRL.

Seventh and final round fixtures: HBL vs SNGPL (UBL Sports Complex, Karachi); KRL vs UBL (SBP Sports Complex, Karachi); NBP vs Wapda (NBP Sports Complex, Karachi); SSGC vs PTV (Niaz Stadium, Hyderabad).

Current standings

(Tabulated under played, won, lost, points, net run-rate):

UBL 6 6 0 12 +2.009

PTV 6 4 2 8 +0.605

Wapda 6 4 2 8 -0.031

SSGC 6 3 3 6 +0.722

SNGPL 6 3 3 6 +0.078

HBL 6 3 3 6 -1.126

KRL 6 1 5 2 -0.990

NBP 6 0 6 0 -1.299

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2018