KARACHI: Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) were poised to clinch the inaugural edition of the President’s Trophy Grade-I National Cricket Championship after Habib Bank Limited (HBL) struggled to 169-6 on an overcast penultimate day of the final at the National Stadium here on Thursday.

With just four wickets left, it would require a Herculean effort from the left-handed duo of Imran Farhat (22) and Abdur Rehman (2) – realistically the bankers’ final hope – to get the remaining 160 runs on Friday after a stuttering start to their fourth-innings chase for 329.

On a chilly day with play starting 30 minutes late following light drizzle, SNGPL lost their remaining one wicket after their last pair of Samiullah Khan Niazi and Asad Ali carried their overnight stand to 26, while adding just five runs to Wednesday’s tally of 177-9, when slow left-armer Abdur Rehman had Asad taken at slip by Ahmed Shehzad.

With Imran Farhat unable to open the innings after remaining off the field for most of day three action due to a back problem, Ahmed Shehzad, who in fact is a natural opener, partnered Shan Masood at the start of HBL’s second innings.

But a casual attempt to flick left-arm seamer Samiullah ended Ahmed’s hopes of emulating his first-innings’ heroics when he made 79. Shan was shaping up well until he misjudged an incoming Imran Ali delivery and was declared lbw for 22.

The onus was now on skipper Younis Khan and Asad Shafiq, easily the most reliable of batsmen in the HBL line-up, to make their partnership count. They had done the difficult part – of getting their eye in – in the period leading to the tea break which arrived with the bankers on 80-2.

The equation then changed dramatically after the interval when Imran Khalid, the slow left-armer from Faisalabad playing his first game at this level since the end of November, bagged the prized scalp of Younis with Ali Waqas taking a fine low catch at short leg. Younis, who made 25 off 72 balls in almost two hours of application, tried to tap the ball in the midwicket region but failed to keep it on the ground.

In the very next over, Usman Salahuddin departed for a second-ball duck when Asad Ali successfully won a leg-before-wicket verdict to put SNGPL in total control.Humayun Farhat, the wicket-keeper/batsman who played one Test and five One-day Internationals way back in 2001, knows one way of batting and quickly got run-a-ball 25 in the 51-run partnership with Asad. Another ambitious stroke landed in the safe hands of Azhar Ali at deep point as seamer Imran Ali celebrated his second wicket.

SNGPL then got the wicket they most wanted in the closing overs. Having concentrated so well until that point for 136 minutes, Asad somehow lost the plot against Mohammad Hafeez when he took a few steps down the track but only succeeded in getting an inside edge and watched in horror as Ali Waqas dived to hold another sharp chance.

Asad, who was desperate for a lengthy outing ahead of the tour of South Africa after returning from a finger injury, looked in great shape as he slammed 10 exquisitely-timed boundaries in a 105-ball 58 — the diminutive right-hander’s first notable score since he made an undefeated 80 against Khan Research Laboratories in early November.