Lahore Lions and Sialkot Stallions grabbed easy wins in the Super Eight T20 Cup at Faisalabad’s Iqbal Stadium on Monday night. Lions defeated Leopards by 43 runs while Silakot Stallions moved past Hyderabad Hawks with 33 runs win on day four of the event. The Lions despite the loss of some quick wickets managed to score 148 runs for nine. Leopards attack did not allow the Lions to score easily. Kamran (44), Umer (20) and Imran (27*) were the impressive batsmen for the Lions. Nasrullah Khan and Iftikhar Anjum grabbed three and two wickets respectively while Saad Altaf, Zohain Ahmed and Imad Wasim shared one wicket each for the Leopards. In reply, Leopards produced the shaky start and four for 42 at the end of seventh over. Middle order batsman Shan Masood (32) turned out to be the only run-getter. He along with Saad Altaf stretched the total to 105 before the whole team was out in 18.5 overs. Earlier, Stallions put 183 runs on the board and later restricted the Hawks at 150 runs to all out in 18.2 overs in the opening match of the day.
Imran Nazir, after hitting two back to back sixes was bowled by Yasin. But Mansoor Amjad, Shoaib Malik and Shahid Yousuf kept their wickets intact with easy flows of runs and hit hard in the last few overs. Nasir Awais with two wickets was the prominent bowler for Hawks. In reply, Hawks openers Sharjeel and Azeem Ghuman provided the dream start but their following batsmen failed miserably before the pressure applied by Stallions. Shahid Qambrani was the only other player to have reached the double figure. Stallions’ Sarmad Anwar grabbed three and Rehman with two wickets dented the Hawks dream of win and kept Stallions’ hopes alive in the tournament.
