KARACHI: Opener Shoaib Khan made up for lost time with a bright unbeaten 63 as State Bank reached 79-1 in the Division Two final of the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy National Cricket Championship against Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Saturday.
After Friday's blank opening day because of wet patches on the square, the five-day match finally began at 3:00pm after more work was done to dry up the area on Saturday.
KRL skipper Mohammad Wasim inserted the bankers in after winning the toss, but his decision backfired as Shoaib managed to score freely in the company of his captain Kashif Siddique. The opening stand was worth 52 when Kashif was trapped LBW by Yasir Arafat for a painstaking 40-ball knock of six.
But Shoaib carried on aggressively to stroke nine boundaries in his 74-ball innings as he and Adnan Raees, who is batting on seven, batted through the remaining time on a truncated afternoon when just 23 overs were bowled.
Yasir, the former Test seamer, had figures of one for 41 in eight overs.
Scoreboard
STATE BANK (1st Innings): Shoaib Khan not out 63 Kashif Siddique lbw b Yasir 6 Adnan Raees not out 7 EXTRAS (LB-1, NB-2) 3 TOTAL (for one wkt, 23 overs) 79 FALL OF WKT: 1-52. TO BAT: Rameez Alam, Naved Yasin, Afsar Nawaz, Gulraiz Sadaf, Rizwan Haider, Jalat Khan, Mohammad Rameez, Mohammad Naved. BOWLING (to-date): Yasir Arafat 8-2-41-1 (2nb); Mohammad Irfan 6-2-18-0; Rahat Ali 4-1-16-0; Shakeel-ur-Rehman 3-1-3-0; Bilal Asad 1-1-0-0; Ali Naqvi 1-1-0-0. KRL: Saeed Anwar Jr, Ali Naqvi, Bilal Asad, Mohammad Wasim, Mohammad Idrees, Ali Khan, Zulfiqar Jan, Yasir Arafat, Shakeel-ur-Rehman, Rahat Ali, Mohammad Irfan. UMPIRES: Ahsan Raza and Saleem Badar. MATCH REFEREE: Khateeb Rizwan.
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