da bet nacional： Excellent half centuries by Naumanullah and skipper Moin Khan guidedKarachi Whites to the National One-day Associations Cricket Tournamenttitle when they defeated Sheikhupura by 79 runs at the Qadhafi Stadiumon Sunday
Muhammad Yaqoob10-Dec-2011Excellent half centuries by Naumanullah and skipper Moin Khan guidedKarachi Whites to the National One-day Associations Cricket Tournamenttitle when they defeated Sheikhupura by 79 runs at the Qadhafi Stadiumon Sunday.Naumanullah shifted the gears at the right time to score a 96-ball 74while a cameo innings of 67 from 63 balls by Moin propelled thevisitors to an imposing 278 for five from 50 overs.Sheikhupura never recovered from the double shock in the first eightballs to finish at 199 – thanks to a face-saving 106 by Test rejectQaisar Abbas.Moin, leading Karachi Whites in the absence of an injured ShadabKabir, received the trophy from the sponsors chief executive Mr Asadand a cash prize of Rs75,000.Sheikhupura’s skipper Aqib Javed received the runners-up cash prize ofRs40,000.Karachi Whites, electing to bat first, made a shaky start losing boththe openers, including key man Shahid Afridi and Zafar Jadoon, at thetotal of 12.Naumanullah with Saeed bin Nasir, however, stabilised the innings whenthey added 99 runs off 134 balls to lift the total to 111.The partnership ended when Saeed was bowled by leg-spinner Faisal Virkafter scoring 49. He hit four boundaries and faced 79 balls.Moin Khan, promoting himself to No 5, joined Naumanullah and featuredin three productive partnerships which helped his team reach achallenging score.Moin and Nauman added 55 runs off 67 balls for the fourth wicketbefore the latter was stumped by Kaleem Imran off leg-spinner FarrukhMajeed for 74. Nauman’s innings was studded with seven boundaries.Moin Khan, then found another ally in Hasan Raza with whom he added 34runs off 29 balls before Hasan departed, being stumped by Kaleem offFarrukh Majeed, for 23.Moin and Arif Mahmood then held Sheikhupura bowlers by the scruff oftheir necks with some exquisite hitting to plunder 76 runs off thefinal 42 balls.Arif blasted five boundaries and a six in his undefeated 23-ball 43while Moin played a typical innings during which he struck threeboundaries and two sixes.Sheikhupura were made to pay for packing their bowling attack withspinners when none of them could contain the rampaging tourists.Chasing a big target, Sheikhupura innings revolved around Qaisar Abbaswho played a sensible knock at a time when wickets continued to falllike nine-pins from the other end.It was such a shame that despite hitting a brilliant century, theleft-hander had to end up on the losing side.Qaisar slammed 10 fours off 134 balls. He reached his 50 off 71 ballswith five hits to the fence when completed his century by pullingAdnan Malik to long-on for a boundary.The writing for Sheikhupura was on the wall after Imran Nazirdisappointed his team-mates to be bowled off the very first ball ofthe innings by Tanvir Ahmad.Sheikhupura had hardly recovered from Imran’s demise when in thefollowing over, Mohammad Javed also perished. The dismissal of theopeners left Sheikhupura playing for pride than anything else.Moin not only marshalled his troops like a shrewd leader, continued toinspire his boys in the field by holding three catches.But the real star of Karachi in the sweating afternoon was left-armspinner Adnan Malik who bowled to a teasing line and length to berewarded with three wickets for 48 runs.Pacemen Tanvir Ahmad and Imran Javed and off-spinner Tabish Nawab gottwo wickets each for 23, 46 and 32 runs respectively.