KARACHI: Sahibzada Farhan underlined his growing stature as a future international star with a brilliant century while helping Punjab romp past Balochistan by seven wickets in a high-scoring first match of the Pakistan Cup in Faisalabad on Wednesday night.

The 22-year-old Farhan — who came into prominence recently with a couple of good contributions for Pakistan Super League champions Islamabad United — slammed a career-best 155 as Punjab chased down Balochistan’s massive total of 365-3 with seven balls left at the Iqbal Stadium.

It was the young right-hander’s third one-day hundred as he surpassed his previous best score of 119 for Peshawar against Lahore Whites during the National Regional One-day Cup in February.

Mohammad Rizwan also played a key role with a career-high 124 — his fourth in List A format, while going his previous best score of 116 — as the wicket-keeper/batsman partnered man-of-the-match Farhan in a rollicking second-wicket partnership of 238 in 192 deliveries.

Farhan’s 145-ball knock included 17 fours and two sixes. Rizwan’s 97-ball innings was laced with 13 fours and two sixes, while captain Shoaib Malik contributed an eight-ball cameo of 21 with three fours and a six.

Earlier, Bismillah Khan’s second List A hundred plus good support from captain Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad Nawaz and Rameez Raja propelled Balochistan to an imposing tally. After Shehzad chose to bat first upon winning the toss, Balochistan took maximum advantage of a batting track to amass the fourth highest total in the three-year history of this competition, which was usurped by Punjab just a few hours later.

Balochistan suffered an early setback when Naved Malik was run for nine but Bismillah and Shehzad then put Punjab bowler to the sword as the two of them shared a second-wicket partnership of 173 from 154 deliveries.

Bismillah fell to spinner Kashif Bhatti after striking 14 boundaries in his 105-ball innings of 106, while Shehzad was tragically run out only five short of what could have been his 17th one-day century. The skipper’s 95 off 86 balls included six fours and three sixes.

Nawaz, the vice-captain, and Rameez provided the finishing touches to the innings in another blazing stand as they added 126 in just 70 balls for the unbroken fourth wicket.

The left-handed Nawaz clobbered 83 with 55-ball knock featuring eight boundaries and a brace of sixes, while Rameez struck five fours and two sixes in his 36-ball 51.

The bowlers, inevitably, all took a real pasting barring Kashif who gave away 59 runs in his 10 overs and also delivered the only maiden of this remarkable match. On Thursday, the champions of the first two editions, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federal Areas, face each other.

Scoreboard

BALOCHISTAN:

Bismillah Khan c Imran b Kashif 106
Naved Malik run out 9
Ahmed Shehzad run out 95
Mohammad Nawaz not out 83
Rameez Raja not out 51

EXTRAS (B-2, LB-5, W-14) 21

TOTAL (for three wkts, 50 overs) 365

FALL OF WKTS: 1-28, 2-201, 3-239.

DID NOT BAT: Khushdil Shah, Sohail Tanvir, Anwar Ali, Mohammad Irfan Jr, Umar Gul, Shaheen Shah Afridi.

BOWLING: Mohammad Sami 10-0-77-0 (2w); Kashif Bhatti 10-1-59-1; Mohammad Imran 10-0-66-0 (1w); Usama Mir 10-0-77-0 (1w); Sohail Akhtar 2-0-21-0; Shoaib Malik 2-0-15-0; Shahid Yousuf 3-0-24-0 (3w); Asif Ali 3-0-19-0 (2w).

PUNJAB:

Zain Abbas run out 47
Sahibzada Farhan b Shaheen 155
Mohammad Rizwan not out 124
Shoaib Malik b Irfan 21
Asif Ali not out 5

EXTRAS (B-2, LB-3, W-6, NB-3) 14

TOTAL (for three wkts, 48.5 overs) 366

FALL OF WKTS: 1-92, 2-330, 3-361.

DID NOT BAT: Shahid Yousuf, Sohail Akhtar, Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Sami, Kashif Bhatti, Usama Mir.

BOWLING: Umar Gul 10-0-89-0; Sohail Tanvir 6-0-42-0 (2nb, 4w); Anwar Ali 3-0-21-0 (1w); Shaheen Shah Afridi 9-0-61-1; Mohammad Nawaz 10-0-60-0 (1w); Mohammad Irfan Jr 9.5-0-79-1 (1nb); Khushdil Shah 1-0-9-0.

RESULT: Punjab won by seven wickets.

UMPIRES: M. Sajid Afridi and Rashid Riaz.

TV UMPIRE: Zameer Haider.

MATCH REFEREE: Aziz-ur-Rehman.

MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Sahibzada Farhan.

THURSDAY’S FIXTURE: Federal Areas vs Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2:30pm PST).

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2018