KARACHI: Ahmed Shehzad made a strong statement yet again when the skipper inspired Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to the National One-day Cup for Departments title with a five-wicket defeat of Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) at the National Stadium here on Monday.
Shoaib Malik warmed up for the upcoming One-day International series in Australia with an excellent knock of 93 as SSGC, in their maiden final of a major domestic competition, were thwarted by a sluggish start before reaching a below par score of 232-7.
Shehzad led the chase by scoring 68 and with handy contributions from several others, enabled HBL reach the target with 14 balls to spare.
PCB chairman Shaharyar M. Khan distributed the prizes at a ceremony which was also attended governing board member Mansoor M. Khan, general manager domestic cricket Shafiq Ahmed as well as senior HBL officials, including marketing chief Naveed Asghar.
Shaharyar, who paid a visit to national selector Tauseef Ahmed on Sunday to congratulate the former Test spinner on his daughter’s wedding, watched the final without showing signs of being fatigue despite a busy few days in the city.
After a quiet 16 days in the tournament, the final drew a sparse turnout of around 600 solely due to the presence of one man — former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi — who made his presence felt in the first half with bowling figures of 1-42 and a direct-hit run out in the fourth over of the morning.
Chasing on a pitch that had eased up considerably made HBL’s task relatively comfortable, and though they endured a collapse of some sort between the 23rd and 33rd overs as well as a misfortune in the shape of Fakhar Zaman forced to retire hurt twice, there was no doubt which side deserved Rs1 million, awarded to the champions along with the winners’ trophy with SSGC settling for Rs500,000 and the runners-up trophy.
The toss played a role in deciding the outcome and once Fawad Alam had lost it, SSGC were resigned to face the consequences which jeopardized their title aspirations. In contrast, HBL’s fifth straight victory in the campaign amply made up for the huge disappointment of finishing runners-up to first-time champions Wapda in the preceding drawn Quaid-i-Azam Trophy final at the same just 18 days ago, when ironically, the toss made all the difference.
It was a straightforward factor which Fawad lamented afterwards while talking to reporters: “The tragedy here is that the toss decided the result to be honest, particularly in the winter when early morning start means coping with the moisture underneath the pitch.
“In other countries, the [playing] conditions generally don’t dictate the result and give both [competing teams] even opportinuties to cash in. Today we were doing the catching up from ball one and ultimately lost.”
SSGC’s struggles began from the onset when Shehzad smartly opened the bowling with occasional spin of Aftab Khan and right-arm pace of Fahim Ashraf. The opening 10 overs yielded just 20 runs and the by the next 10, SSGC had advanced to as far as 47 and lost their top three batsmen.
Afridi’s powerful arm cut Awais Zia’s stay before left-arm speedster Usman Khan Shinwari took care of Umar Amin who made 13 off 38 balls. Afridi then closed Adil Amin’s torturous 43-ball six-run innings.
Asif Zakir and Malik showed there was nothing devilish about the surface as they put on 57 with playing freely. Asif holed to long on after making 41 off 51 balls with five boundaries.
Fawad (22 off 30 balls) then joined Malik in another rebuilding partnership of 59 when the captain got himself double-minded and lobbed a simple catch off a full-toss from slow left-armer.