KARACHI, Dec 23: The inaugural edition of the RBS Pentangular Cup one-day tournament reaches its climax when Punjab Stallions and Federal Areas Leopards clash in the final at the National Stadium here on Wednesday.
Without any doubt, these two evenly-matched outfits deserve to be playing for the title in a tournament that has provided some thrilling contests, notably Leopards’ thrilling one-run victory over the NWFP Panthers on Monday — a result that sealed Shoaib Akhtar’s young team a place in the final.
Wednesday’s deciding game pits the two Shoaibs — Malik and Akhtar — against each other as rival skippers. While Shoaib Malik’s Stallions had marched through as the only unbeaten side in the competition, Shoaib Akhtar’s Leopards had played outstanding cricket since losing badly to the Stallions in the tournament opener in Lahore 10 days ago.
In the post-match media conference on Monday, Shoaib Akhtar warned his rivals that his side won’t give an inch come on Wednesday since they had learnt their lessons well after that 98-run defeat against the Stallions at the Gaddafi Stadium.
But Malik has been the pivotal force behind the Stallions’ campaign. The Pakistan captain is the tournament’s leading scorer with 262 runs (ave 131.00). In addition he tops the bowling averages with eight wickets at 16.62.
With no international action in Pakistan for virtually most of this year, this event in particular has given domestic cricket a much-needed boost with almost leading national players in action, barring of course Younis Khan who is playing in Australia’s Sheffield Shield competition for South Australia.
The Stallions may have slight edge in the batting department, led by Malik and Salman Butt but the Leopards have the most perceptive bowling combination. In fact, they boast of an attack that has represented Pakistan. Apart from Shoaib Akhtar, they have the luxury of having Sohail Tanvir, Rao Iftikhar, Yasir Arafat and Saeed Ajmal, whose double strike on Monday pushed the Leopards through to the grand final.
But the Stallions have the lean figure of Mohammad Talha to call upon. This youngster has been, by far, the most outstanding talent among pace bowlers on view with a haul of eight wickets.
However, the Leopards have in their side the precocious talent of 20-year-old Umar Amin. A left-handed batsman who will surely play for Pakistan soon enough, Umar displayed calm demeanour in playing probably the innings of the competition when he scored an unbeaten 125 against Balochistan Bears.Apart from Umar, the Leopards have been well served by Afaq Raheem, who has accumulated exactly 200 runs at a neat average of 100.00.
The toss at this time of the year generally plays a big role in deciding the outcome because of the ‘moisture’ factor in the pitch. If either of the captains wins the toss, he would definitely opt to field first.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has appointed former Pakistan off-spinner Akram Raza to stand in the final alongside ex-Test umpire Mian Aslam.
The PCB’s decision to ‘oblige’ Akram, who has never umpired at top level and has mostly stood in under-19 matches since 2006-07, is rather unexpected since he was not on the tournament’s panel of umpires (and match referees). Moreover, the appointments of Kamal Merchant, who is the TV umpire, and match referee Ilyas Khan has also come as a major surprise since like Akram, these two were also missing from the original panels announced before the tournament began.
And if Mian Aslam had not been due to retire at the end of the ongoing domestic season, the final would have been, in all probability, supervised by an entirely new team of officials. But at the end of the day, such goofy acts on PCB’s part are not new.
Probable teams:
PUNJAB STALLIONS: Nasir Jamshed, Azhar Ali, Salman Butt, Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik (captain), Kamran Akmal, Raza, Mansoor Amjad, Abdur Rehman, Junaid Zia, Sarfraz Ahmed, Mohammad Talha.
FEDERAL AREAS LEOPARDS: Raheel Majeed, Babar Naeem, Umar Amin, Afaq Raheem, Usman Saeed, Mohammad Salman, Sohail Tanvir, Yasir Arafat, Shoaib Akhtar (captain), Rao Iftikhar, Saeed Ajmal.
Umpires: Mian Aslam and Akram Raza.
TV umpire: Kamal Merchant.
Match referee: Ilyas Khan.