Army entered the final of the 19th National Baseball Championship after crushing Punjab14-0 in the first semi-final at the Iqbal Park Sports Complex here on Monday. The second pre-final between defending champions WAPDA and Police will be played on Tuesday.
Army were aggressive right from the start as they plundered four runs in the first innings through Imtiaz, Farooq, Zahid and Iftikhar. They added two more in the second innings when Imtiaz and Farooq contributed one more run to increase the lead to 6-0. In the third innings Zafar and Umair produced one run each as the soldiers remained on the front seat, without any big opposition. In the fourth and last innings Army hit six runs as their Imtiaz, Farooq, Arshad, Iftikhar, Rashid and Arslan added one each to win the match comfortably. Earlier, in the last group match, Police defeated Khyber PK 10-1 to confirm a place in the last four. For Police, Dure Hussain (2) Nasir Butt (2), Ahsan Beg (2), Maqsood (2) Muzaffar Hussain (1), and Nawazih (1) were the scorers.