Lahore Lions beat Hyderabad Hawks by eight runs, while Sialkot Stallions defeated Islamabad Leopards by four wickets to secure the place in the semi-final of the Super Eight T20 Cup at the Iqbal Stadium Faisalabad on Wednesday night.
Lahore Lions won the toss and elected to bat first and scored the total of 160 for 9 after 20 overs. Lions got off to a forceful start with opener Ahmed Shehzad (78) and Nasir Jamshed (17) to raise the score up to 75 in eight overs. At that time, Lions were eyeing for the mammoth total, but Hawks’ Nasir Awais came forward and took three wickets including Nasir Jamshed, Umer Akmal and Kamran Akmal in quick session. Zahid Mahmood was the other Hawks’ bowler who grabbed three wickets to restrict the Lions to 160. In reply, Hawks’ start were edgy, they lost their opener Sharjeel Khan but Aqeel Anjum 40 on 16 balls with three sixes and four fours gave the foundation with Azeem Ghumman solid innings of 43 runs. But no other batsmen could stay on the wicket in front of Lions’ Aizaz Cheema and Adnan Rasool and lost the match by eight runs.
Earlier, Sialkot Stallions snatched the win from the jaws of defeat after Islamabad Leopards put up a perfect team effort in the opening match of the day on Wednesday.
Stallions chased the target of 170 runs in 19.1 overs for the loss of six wickets. Stallions, which floundered in the initial part of the match came back strongly and won by four wickets. Leopards dented the Stallions upper order led by Imran Nazir but Shahid Yousuf (44) erased the deficit and later Ansar (55) along with Shoaib Malik went on to a proper onslaught to get 43 runs for the fifth wicket.
After Ansar was back in the pavilion, Malik and Ali Khan brought the score close to win. Islamabad Leopards in their team display scored 170 runs for nine with Nauman Masood being the top scorer. He scored 47 on 24 balls. Fakhar Hussain, Naeem Anjum and Shan Masood also played their part in the match by scoring 23, 30 and 23 runs respectively which gave a fighting look to the total.
Abdur Rehman did the main damage by taking three wickets for 28 runs while Sarmad Ahmed grabbed two wickets.
Now Lahore Lions will play Rawalpindi Rams in the first semi-final while Karachi Dolphins will face Sialkot Stallions in the second semi-final
