Karachi Dolphins and Faisalabad Wolves earned the opening day honours as the Super Eight T20 Cup rolled into action at Faisalabad’s Iqbal Stadium.
Karachi Dolphins sneaked to nine runs win over Rawalpindi Rams in the second match while Faisalabad Wolves defeated Multan Tigers earlier in the day.
Sarfraz Ahmed with his patience lifted the Karachi Dolphins total to 145 after they lost some quick wickets with little addition to the totals. Sarfraz remained unbeaten at 25 while he stayed at the crease to play 27 balls. Shahzaib Hassan with his 35 runs innings and Rameez Raja with his 20-ball 29 runs gave some authority to the Dolphins total. Samiullah took two wickets while Sohail Tanveer, Hammad Azam and Zahid Mansoor shared one wicket each. In reply Rams could not bear the Dolphins’ bowlers accuracy and fell short of nine runs. The only exception in their batting line-up was Umar Amin who kept his nerves but could not get ample support from the other end.
Pacer Tanvir Ahmed, Tariq Haroon and Haaris Ayaz were the impressive bowlers for the Dolphins, who restricted the Rams to only 136 in 20 overs by losing all wickets, to win the match. Earlier, Asif Ali cracked a 59-ball hundred to set an easy win for Faisalabad Wolves against Multan Tigers in the opening match.
Wolves restricted Tigers at 130 runs and won the match by 69 runs. Batting first, Wolves scored 199 for three, after losing Mohammad Hafeez for a duck.
Asif Hussain and Asif Ali 124 runs for the second wicket really set the platform for the other players. Misbah later joined Ali and made 32 off 21 balls with the help of four boundaries and a six. Abdur Rauf, Ahmed Raza and Zulfiqar Babar shared one wicket each for Tigers. In reply, the Tigers were clamped by Wolves bowler Hasan Mahmood. He grabbed five wickets to bowl out Tigers at 130 in 18.1 overs.
Naseer Akram and Mohammad Hafeez shared two wickets each while Khurrum Shahzad had one for the Wolves. Zain Abbas and Zeeshan Ashraf were the only batsmen to come among runs with 23 and 27 runs respectively.