LAHORE, Oct 30: Army whipped Wapda 24-11 to win the national baseball championship for a consecutive third time at the Iqbal Parks Sports Complex Tuesday.

Army excelled in all departments of the game during the final. They pitched the ball well, batted with authority and showed good anticipation in fielding to restrict Wapda from scoring runs freely.

However, Army made a lazy start getting no score in the first innings. But Wapda earned four runs. From here onwards Army showed improvement in every innings, but Wapda failed to maintain the flow of run and had conceded 13 runs lead by the end of the seventh innings. At this point, the umpires decided to finish the match because Wapda were not in a position to wipe off such a big deficit in the next two innings.

After getting nothing in the first innings, Army forged ahead scoring five, six, seven, two, one and three runs in the next six innings to gain a commanding total of 24.

Wapda after scoring four runs in the first, showed dismal performance in the remaining game getting one, zero, two, two, zero and two runs in the next innings.

For Army, Raja Asjad and Abdur Rahman hit one home-run each. Aashiq Husain was the top scorer for the soldiers with four runs. Sarfraz Ahmad, Tariq Pasha, Abdur Rahman, Riaz Khan, Mohammad Arif contributed three runs, each. Kamran Mahboob added two runs. Raja Asjad, Zafar Iqbal and Fayyaz scored one run each.

For Wapda, Ajmal Khan, Abid Mahmood scored three runs each. Abid Mahmood also hit one home-run. Amjad Farooq, Nisar Ahmad, Saaqib Butt, Ali Shah and Asghar chipped in with one run each.

At the conclusion, the Pakistan Baseball Federation secretary Khawar Shah urged the Pakistan Olympic Association to include baseball in the Pakistan contingent for the next Asian Games which are being held in South Korea. He said that the Pakistan had qualified for the Asian Games after finishing second in the last Asia Cup, and now it depends on POA to include baseball game in its contingent.