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With their seven-wicket victory over Total Energy CC, Malir Sports reached the semifinals of the Kareemuddin Colour Kit Ramazan cricket festival, at the Malir Raiders ground on Sunday.Batting first, Total Energy were skittled out for 121 runs in 20 overs, with Naved Zameer three for 23, Shan two for 22 and Mohammad Shahid two for 28 doing the damage. Kazim Rizvi scored 25 runs for his side.Malir Sports reached 122 for three wickets in reply off 14.3 overs.Omer CC move aheadOmer CC moved ahead in the A.O., Super Cup beating Korangi Al Fateh by two wickets. Batting first Korangi Al Fateh could only muster up 112 for eight in 20 overs with Anis Sheikh and Saqib Zia scoring 23 runs apiece. Iftikhar Ali claimed four wickets for 25 runs.Omer CC replied with 113 for eight off the very last delivery. S.M. Baber top scored with 55 runs. Mohammmad Ali Naqvi bagged two for 14 and Anis Sheikh two for 25 for the losers.Karachi Star beatenCandyland after beating Karachi Stars by three wickets moved ahead in the M.A. Shah Floodlight Trophy tournament Sunday night.Karachi Stars asked to bat first were bundled out for 132 in 19.1 overs. Iqbal Imam top scored with (47), Hasan Raza (24) also batted with confidence. Atif Raza picked up four wickets for 25 runs and Akber Rehman chipped in with three for 26.Candyland in reply scored 133 for seven in 19.2 overs. Zamir Khan (33) and Nasim Khan (32) were among the runs for the winners, while Kamran Umer four for 27 had a fine spell for the losers.Tuesday fixture: Afroze Textiles v A.O. Green 10.00 p.m.

After playing a captain’s innings for Australia on the opening day, Ricky Ponting expressed his relief in reversing his recent slump with the bat. Ponting scored 158 off 224 balls to take Australia to a commanding 301 for 4 after opting to bat first at Sabina Park.Though Ponting managed a century in his last Test appearance, against India in Adelaide in January, he struggled through the tri-series that followed, scoring 191 in ten games at an average just under 20, and wasn’t at his best in the Indian Premier League either. Reflecting on his innings, Ponting said he had the luxury of time to build an innings and play himself into form.”It’s nice to know you have six hours to go out and build an innings,” Ponting said at a news conference. “In (Twenty20) sometimes you have got six balls or six minutes.”The start of a Test summer for me is always exciting. Our last overseas Test was nearly two years ago, we haven’t played a lot of Test cricket. I’ve been looking forward to putting on the whites again and the baggy green and spending some time in the middle. I got that today. The last Test innings I had was a hundred but I struggled through the one-day series and never felt that comfortable and today felt comfortable again.”I didn’t feel like I did much wrong at all today to tell the truth, I’ve been working pretty hard at my game and felt really good in the nets going into the game. In the practice game last week I felt some things coming back again. Last time, I had a really good tour to the Caribbean, and I have gotten off to a good start this time. It’s just funny. Sometimes you go to places that you enjoy playing and you have a lot of success.”Ponting said he was happy with his team’s showing on the first day and praised his batsmen for adjusting well on a pitch where scoring got tougher as the day progressed.”It was hard work, it was hot, when the hardness went out of the ball it was hard to score runs, I think all the batsmen had to work hard. It’s important that we don’t let today’s work slip tomorrow. It’s about putting two good days together and then we will really be in the box seat.”

Worcestershire County Cricket Club have announced the release of five Players at the end of the current season in addition to the previously announced retirements of Paul Pollard and Stuart Lampitt.Matt Rawnsley, Duncan Catterall and Depesh Patel will not have their contracts renewed for 2003. 2nd XI Players Nathan Round and Gurdeep Kandola will have their registrations released.Chief executive, Mark Newton, said “We have decided to reduce the size of our squad from 23 Players to either 19 or 20 next season. We wish all five Players well for the future and thank them for their services to the Club.”

For some people, it is akin to a pilgrimage, an annual-or-so journey undertaken with near-reverence to just imbibe their share of the action. For others, it is the greatest second-hand thrill they can experience, an escapist hiatus from day-to-day drudgery. For yet some others, it is a chance to breathe the same air as the heroes they worship.Sadly these days, it also appears that for some more, a cricket match is the window into 15 minutes of fame as the sweep of the television camera catches them hooting, waving, sporting hideously ungrammatical banners, and generally making fools ofthemselves.Three consecutive one-day internationals between India and the West Indies have been marred by crowd trouble, the last of which had to be abandoned with more than 20 overs to play. Puzzlingly enough, when the crowd stepped into the fray – with a well-aimed bottle that struck Vasbert Drakes – India were 200 for one from 27.1 overs, nicely on their way to chasing down the target of 301. Latest action hero Virender Sehwag, moreover, was winding up to set pulses racing faster than they already were, unbeaten on an 82-ball 114. Why on earth, then, would an Indian supporter want to wreck a game poised at this delightful stage?Admittedly, to stretch the point a little, there are few things people will eschew in an effort to hog the limelight. And so cricket coverage has seen its share of freaks in the crowds; from wearing women’s dresses (by men, obviously!) to dressing up as SantaClaus to shaving the names of television channels into designer hairdos, nothing seems too absurd. Perhaps, then, the simple act of hurling a half-filled water bottle onto the field is only another manifestation of this publicity-seeking phenomenon.Sociologist, writer and long-standing cricket aficionado Mukul Kesavan agrees that this might just be the case. “I think the difference between crowds now and crowds earlier (circa 1970, say) is that then you were watching a game for which you hadbought a ticket and for which you had risen at five in the morning to get a decent place in the cheap seats. Watching a game was a rare and precious experience, and if you did riot, it was because your cricketing passions got the better of you,” he says.Going one step further, Kesavan adds, “Now the rowdiness seems to be more pastime than passion. My guess is that this is an extreme manifestation off the TV disease. People who come to watch cricket matches today come to watch an entertainment that they have previously seen on TV. Watching cricket on television is on par with watching other kinds of popular entertainment, such as game-shows, where the programme is as much about the studio audience as it is about the stars.”That crowds have always been on air for surprisingly long is indisputable, right from the days when Henry Blofeld discoursed at embarrassing length on the sizes, shapes and colours of jewelry sported by women in the stands, down to the modern phenomenon of cricketers-turned-commentators vainly reading out banners that fans scrawl about them. One-day cricket, thus, has not only changed the way fans view the game, but the manner in which they watch it as well.While Indian grounds certainly have no monopoly over crowd trouble, there are several facets that are unique to them. The most relevant, probably, is the fact that the percentage of people who actually pay for their tickets at venues is an absurdly low figure.Take the case of the recent India-West Indies Test match at Chennai. The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) gives out complimentary tickets under various heads. Every player who has ever represented Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy, for example, gets two tickets. If the cricketer has played for India, the count usually rises. Every umpire – and there are an estimated 200-plus such registered umpires under the auspices of the TNCA – also receive their freebies. Every member of the Madras Cricket Club (MCC) gets a ticket, as do members of the Madras Race Club, which is affiliated to the MCC. In all, just these minor categories would account for several thousand tickets.Secondly, every district association – and there are 28 such – gets a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 75 tickets, based on their relative importance. In addition to this, tickets from specified stands, sold commercially at Rs 300 are made available to them for Rs 75. Add to this the fact that every registered club – over 100 such in the five divisions that constitute the TNCA league – and you’ve accounted for a little more than 10,000 complimentary tickets.Only then do the heavyweights enter the picture. Every government agency ­ the police, the municipal corporation, the water-works, you name it – gets a slab of tickets. By and large, there are no stipulated quotas, but the tickets awarded are inproportion to the clout that each of these institutions wields with the TNCA. Of course, staff from all these departments “on duty” at the venue may number another several thousand. (The Kolkata Test against Australia, to cite an example, had as many as 22,000 policemen on duty at the Eden Gardens.) Throw in the comparatively trivial numbers that make up pressmen, vendors, ball-boys, hospitality staff, and one would then hardly be surprised to find that a huge proportion of the 50,000 seats at the TNCA are just given away.Where, then, do the paying public figure? In just a small minority in the stands. It goes without saying that people in general are infinitely more careful with their money than other peoples’. When the power blinks out in a cinema theatre, impatient audiences holler out only the choicest invective at the management until the show resumes. When someone orders a tomato-less burger at a restaurant, only to find it teeming with tomatoes, it is immediately returned with a demand for a replacement.Would it not be logical, then, to extend these analogies to cricket? Would someone who paid of their hard-earned for a ticket be likely to throw a bottle and bring a screeching halt to the entertainment? “No spectator has any financial stake in watching the match,” observes Kesavan. “The solution is selling tickets to individuals, not giving them away as freebies. Once people who want to watch cricket badly enough to pay for their tickets fill stadiums (or even half-fill them) you won’t have a tenth as much trouble,” summarises Kesavan.One cannot help but think that this might be the one of the few genuine solutions to the problem. More policing, closed-circuit cameras, heavy frisking and other ad-hoc strategies to tackle the problem would be like taking an aspirin to fight the flu. The pain may ebb, but the root cause has hardly been tackled. If the authorities are serious about resolving this issue, the only way to do so is to bring the genuine cricket fans streaming back into the cricket grounds.

SYDNEY, July 31 AAP/Reuters – Glenn McGrath’s lack of ability in wielding the willow may eventually affect his career, new research reveals.McGrath is one of the world’s worst Test batsmen, with an average of 6.52 an innings, even less in one day internationals where his high score is 11.Now researchers including Dr John Orchard of the University of NSW say McGrath’s lack of time in the middle with the bat, especially if his team bats first, makes him a prime candidate for injury.In a report released in The British Journal of Sports Medicine this week, Orchard said the chances of suffering hamstring strains, groin injuries and damage to the wrists, hands and back are greater according to the batting/bowling order.”Bowlers are more likely to be injured when undertaking big workloads and when bowling second (after batting),” said Orchard.Fast bowlers in cricket have the highest risk of being injured but bowling first and batting second increases the odds even further, the report said.About 14 per cent of fast bowlers receive injuries, compared to four per cent of spin bowlers and batsmen, and two per cent of wicket-keepers.The scientists suspect bowlers may be more susceptible to injury when their team bowls second in a match because they warm up in the nets at the start of the first innings but in other innings they are more likely to start bowling immediately after batting.McGrath is usually the last man out, and then the man to bowl the first over when Australia takes to the field.Overall, cricket is a relatively safe sport. But after studying the type and number of injuries to Australian first class cricket teams during premier and one day international matches the researchers believe it could be made safer.The scientists said the average injury rate for the 20 matches played in a season in Australia was 19.2 injuries for every squad of 25 players. One day internationals resulted in the highest number of injuries.If a bowler bowled more than 20 match overs in the week before a game, he had almost double the risk of injury and bowling second after batting first raised the injury risk to 60 per cent.The fastest bowlers had the greatest risk of injury and players colliding with the boundary fence while fielding were a major cause of injury.”The most important potentially reversible risk factor is bowler workload. The sporting activity most similar to bowling is pitching in baseball, for which workload is monitored much more closely than bowling,” said Orchard.The biggest injury concerns for fast bowlers were accelerated degeneration of the lumbar spine over the course of their career, as well as disc degeneration, shoulder injuries, foot and ankle injuries, knee tendon injuries and side strains.

Sri Lanka held their nerves to capture the Morocco Cup beating South Africa by 27 runs Wednesday. South Africa, chasing 236 for victory, looked dead and buried when they slumped to 91 for six in 26 overs. But a gritty 101-run seventh wicket partnership from 112 balls between Boeta Dippenaar and Mark Boucher brought the Proteas within striking distance.However, when 44 runs were required off 39 deliveries, Dippenaar tried one shot too many to hole out to Mahela Jayawardene off Pulasathi Gunaratne. But as always when one wicket leads to some more, the remaining three wickets fell in a space of 20 balls for the addition of 16 runs with Boucher being the last man out with nine balls remaining.While Dippenaar anchored the innings and scored 53 from 98 balls with two fours it was Boucher who threatened Sri Lanka’s control with busy innings of 70 from 65 balls with four fours and two sixes.The gutsy wicketkeeper swept the ball with perfection and played innovative pull shots to leave stand-in captain Marvan Atapattu bewildered.South Africa wrote their own demise when they lost six wickets inside 26 overs with the scoreboard reading 91.Muralitharan bowled Nicky Boje in his first over and then added the wicket of Roger Telemachus to finish with two for 35. But it was Gunaratne who picked up the vital wickets of Dippenaar and Boucher to end up with two for 38. Chaminda Vaas removed Herchelle Gibbs (6) and Graeme Smith (15) conceding 33 runs from his 10 overs.Gibbs was smartly held at mid-off by Sri Lankan skipper Sanath Jayasuriya. But, in the process, the left-hander injured his right shoulder.Jayasuriya, who was adjudged man-of-the-final, played his role to perfection when he first won the most important toss and then slapped 10 fours and a six in his run-a-ball 71 to provide his team another flying start. But Sri Lanka, who were 167 for two in 32 overs, failed to capitalize from the ideal platform and could add only 68 runs from the remaining 18 overs as they lost wickets at regular intervals.In the last 10 overs, Sri Lanka added 43 runs while between the 30th and 40th overs, they just added only 37 runs for the loss of three wickets.Lance Klusener, Allan Donald and Nicky Boje masterminded South Africa’s fight back when they equally shared six wickets between them. However South Africa’s strategy to not open the bowling with Donald or Kallis alongside Shaun Pollock proved disastrous.Roger Telemachus, who shared the new ball, allowed the Sri Lankan openers to settle down when he went for 36 runs in his four overs with Jayasuriya alone scoring 28 with five fours and a six.Besides Jayasuriya, who also picked up the Man-of-the-Tournament award, Kumar Sangakkara chipped in with a 54-ball 40, 47-ball 33 by Aravinda de Silva and 25 off 40 deliveries from Marvan Atapattu who put on 78 under 15 overs with his skipper.It was Sri Lanka’s second title since they beat Pakistan in Sharjah in April 2001.The Sri Lankans, who trailed 10-14 against South Africa before the start of the competition, also reduced the gap to 13 wins against 14 loses.Meanwhile Jayasuriya could miss next month’s ICC Champions Trophy after suffering an injury against South Africa.Jayasuriya scored an explosive 71 after winning the toss and batting first but dislocated his right shoulder after falling awkwardly taking a catch.Sri Lanka team physiotherapist Alex Kontouri replaced the dislocation on the field but later confirmed that the injury was serious following a scan at a local hospital.”There is ligament damage. He will have another scan when we return to Sri Lanka but at this stage I would say he is only 50-50 for the Champions Trophy,” Kontouri told reporters.

The first two days’ play of this Guyana Test match – and it can be called thus for more reasons than just the venue – threw up tremendous excitement from stylish batsmen. The third day saw a predictable end to the West Indian innings at a psychologically important 501 and an Indian reply that followed a script that the team seems to pick up from the Immigration and Customs officer every time it leaves the country. At the end of the third day’s play, India had stuttered to 237/4.The day began with a delay – yet another one of those things about the day that was oh-so-predictable. It was just one of those days, one could hear the old man in the stands at the Bourda Oval mutter. The name of that wise veteran Windies supporter (Gus, was it? Or possibly Les?) does not really matter. What does is the fact that there was little to the day’s play that would have worried the bookmakers. No surprises at all.To start off, the West Indies added precious little to their overnight score of 494 for seven. Sanjay Bangar, bowling his medium-pace with a markedly more reasonable field setting, picked up his first Test wicket. It may not have been that of the greatest batsman in the world, but Bangar would still have been pleased as punch when he trapped Mervyn Dillon in front of the stumps for a duck.Anil Kumble, who has toiled hard without much direction or result this match, removed debutant Adam Sanford. A low full-toss that appeared to be slipping down leg in rapping the pads was enough to satisfy umpire Asoka de Silva. A comedy of errors then saw last man Cameron Cuffy run out while Mahendra Nagamootoo remained unbeaten on 15. With 501 on the board, the West Indies licked their chops, took the new ball, and started to have a bowl at the Indians.And that licking of chops was not without good reason. Deep Dasgupta, cruelly dubbed Deep ‘Drop’gupta by some especially severe Indian fans, failed at the one task that is keeping him in supply of India Test caps. Opening the batting, the Indian stumper troubled the scorers merely in the sense that they had to mark out five dot-balls before neatly pencilling in (or typing, in the case of the more technology-savvy scorers) D Dasgupta lbw b Cuffy 0. Plumb in front too, for those who may be wondering if Dasgupta was somehow dealt a cruel hand by fate.Not five overs later, Dasgupta had his Bengal teammate at his side back in the cool confines of the dressing room. Sourav Ganguly, showing some bravado in climbing up the order to number three, failed to come good on a wicket that looks easier to bat on than many others the world of overseas Test cricket can offer.Tentative at best and confused at worst, the Indian skipper scratched around for five runs before committing what television commentator Geoffrey Boycott incorrectly refers to as ‘Hari-Kiri.’ Playing a pull with all the confidence and poise of a flat-footed, pimpled teenager picked to dance with the prom queen, Ganguly mis-hit Dillon to Nagamootoo at backward square leg.Then came that short man from Mumbai. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar put his fan following back home of a billion (incorrectly and conveniently assuming, of course, that every Indian citizen from infant to geriatric is a cricket nut) through a rigorous cardiac test. Playing half-cocked to the first ball he faced, Tendulkar missed edging the ball to the keeper by the finest of whiskers.After that, though, it was all mastery. Showing why he has more centuries, a better average, and basically truck-loads more of every conceivable batting record than any other Indian batsman playing today, Tendulkar dominated the bowling. Striking the ball through the covers as though it were his birthright and whipping the ball through midwicket with the felicity of a confectioner whipping cream, the star of the Indian firmament rose higher and higher.All the while, Nagamootoo and Co. had more than one trick hidden up their sleeves. What Anil Kumble can do with a packed Chinnaswamy Stadium at Bangalore behind him, Nagamootoo can also do with his Guyanese fans sipping the finest Merlin Rum and belting out reggae from the stands. And let us not forget the air-horns that blared loud enough to make one ardent fan plead desperately, “Can’t we shoot that man operating the horn?” It was one of those air-horn special skidders that Nagamootoo trapped Tendulkar plumb in front of the stumps with, just minutes before tea.A crucial ball it was too. Whether it was the deft skill of Nagamootoo’s flipper or a mere deceptive whim of an otherwise placid wicket, Tendulkar’s shot deserved nothing less than the loss of his wicket. A cross-batted pull just minutes before tea on a wicket that kept low every now and then cost India the man who had scored 79 of India’s 144 runs. But one cannot be too hard on Tendulkar. Thirteen sensational boundaries had already dotted his 136-ball innings.As is often the case when India is abroad, Rahul Dravid is the backbone of stability when several others around him fail the test. Indian fans accustomed to run gluts on flat wickets at home often grow impatient with the Indian vice-captain, but his contribution can hardly be underestimated. A patient, painstaking 57 (182 balls, nine fours) in the company of a belligerent and intermittently sublime VVS Laxman (46, 91 balls, seven fours) saw India reach 237 for four when bad light stopped play on the third day.Laxman is a mercurial sort. Sparkling 30s and 40s flow off his blade like there is no tomorrow, but just when he looks classy enough for a big score that will push the opposition on the back foot, a careless heave or slash sends him on his way. Today, though, was a little different. Cutting out several strokes that are usually his strengths, an under-pressure Laxman spent quality time out in the middle. The wristy artistry was there for all to see, and the timing and placement were good enough to beat the field repeatedly.Indian fans will have on their lips that immortal line – “Keep that song playing” – when it comes to strokes at the wicket. And the Hyderabadi stylist will have to keep it playing, in the company of a reliable partner, if India are to somehow try and wrest back the initiative.

Lancashire’s tentative batting gifted Glamorgan their first one-day successof the season, at the seventh attempt.It was Old Trafford’s first day of cricket this summer, but there waslittle for the home support to cheer as Glamorgan made easy work of their148 target.Matthew Maynard’s unbeaten 39 eventually helped them home with26 balls to spare, ending a miserable record of five losses in the Benson& Hedges Cup as well as another defeat in their previous National Leaguematch.Lancashire won the toss but quickly slumped to 9-2, and it could have beenan even smaller target without Neil Fairbrother.He survived a blow to the head from a ball from Alex Wharf, who had alreadyremoved Ryan Driver and Alex Flintoff, and then went on to make 62 from 107balls.Fairbrother and John Crawley put on 53 for the third wicket before Crawleyran himself out, and Lancashire never really recovered.Spinners Dean Cosker and Robert Croft conceded a combined total of just 43from their 18 overs to limit Lancashire to a final total of 147-6.Glamorgan, in contrast, marched to their 50 within ten overs, as AustralianJimmy Maher, with 19, and Keith Newell, who made 29, set the platform.Muttiah Muralitharan bowled his usual miserly spell, conceding just 14 runsfrom nine overs, but couldn’t remove Maynard, who helped the visitors tovictory with a six off Ian Austin.

Internal disputes have cropped up between the members of USA Cricket Association regarding the management of the association’s website, , as shown in emails obtained via sources by ESPNcricinfo. An email from USACA first vice-president Rafey Syed, the man who runs , was sent on September 17 to three members of USA’s management team at ICC WCL Division Four in Malaysia to admonish them for not sending any information/content for him to post on the website. Syed left USACA executive secretary Kenwyn Williams and interim chief executive Nabeel Ahmed off the email but cc’d the rest of the USACA board.Williams responded by voicing his displeasure, not only at being left out of the chain of communication but that he had been denied access to manage the website in his role as USACA executive secretary.”I hope that my non inclusion on the below email was accidental,” Williams wrote to Syed while copying in Ahmed and the rest of the board. “I am definitely not defending Shelton [Glasgow, USA’s manager in Malaysia] here. But I do recall sending you a link to all the pictures and updates from the ICC. You never posted any of the pictures. Again – my call for access to the USACA website is resounding here. I don’t quite understand your insistence that you have control of our website. It’s clear that you do not have the time to upate [sic] the site. It’s obsolete.”Later that same day, a message appeared on the USACA Twitter feed, which is run by Williams, announcing that, “USA Cricket has just today become a new brand. In planning for the future – USA Cricket is developing a new website and establishing a new brand. USACA is now USA Cricket. Our new website is . The page is of course under construction and will be supported by social media until its unveiling in the very near future.”The front page of the new site declares that is, “The official web page of the future of cricket in the United States of America” and features an image of the Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia. Other than links to USACA’s social media pages run by Williams, the website currently has no original content accessible from the home page.A day after was launched, Williams sent an email to Syed and the rest of the board on September 18 saying, “Usaca.org web site is moot. We are moving to a new direction and format. I will need the old USACA name servers to move to usa-cricket.org in the very near future!”In addition to the website conflict, several sources have indicated that Ahmed has grown dissatisfied once again with the direction the organisation is heading under USACA president Gladstone Dainty. Few if any of the goals, including the appointment of a permanent chief executive, earmarked in the USACA’s 100-day plan published in May have been reached.”It’s been months and we have no agenda in place and no one knows of the plans of said committee. A plan that was apparently ‘blessed’ by the ICC. A status on the progress, the members and the minutes of said committee meetings would be appreciated,” Williams wrote to the board in an email dated September 17.Meanwhile, the upstart American Cricket Federation is scheduled to hold its first ever National Twenty20 tournament from October 6-8 in Los Angeles at Woodley. Representative sides from leagues including the Southern California Cricket Association, Minnesota Cricket Association, Michigan Cricket Association and Washington Metropolitan Cricket Board among other leagues will be participating in the event. The ACF Twenty20 tournament fills the domestic tournament void left by USACA, which has not held a national tournament at women’s, men’s or junior level since July 2011.

Lahore-B beat Karachi by one wicket in a thrilling encounter to lift the Quaid-e-Azam (Grade I) Trophy as the five-day final concluded within three days, mainly due to the sporting nature of wicket prepared especially for the final at Karachi’s National Stadium.The outcome of the match remained uncertain right up to the last moment as Lahore, chasing a target of 184 for victory, had lost their ninth wicket with 179 runs on the board. The match could have gone Karachi’s way but the last wicket pair of Waqas Ahmed and Adnan Naeem negotiated some fiery bowling by Shahid Iqbal and Mohammad Sami in the closing minutes of the third day. However, luck favored the visitors. They squeaked through and the winning hit was a chance! The ball, after taking the outer edge of Waqas’s bat flew just wide of Sami fielding at third man for four, bringing up instant joy in the Lahore camp.Irrespective of the outcome, the match was evenly contested throughout the three days, as a number of players – both young and experienced – from either side displayed memorable performances for their sides. The match had an added appeal for cricket fans, as some frontline cricketers of the country took part in it. Apart from the presence of names like Shahid Afridi, Asif Mujtaba and Shadab Kabir, Moin Khan, the skipper of the national team, donned the wicket-keeping gloves for Karachi. Lahore-B, on the other hand, boasted of the inclusion of Wasim Akram and Abdur Razzaq in their ranks.Helped by a magnificent hundred by Shahid Afridi, Karachi scored 297 in their first innings on a pitch that had a fair amount of grass on it. The bowling squad of Lahore, led by the Pakistani all-rounder Abdur Razzaq, bowled really well considering the fact that the home side had reached 286 for six at the end of the first day. However, some accurate bowling from the visitors ensured that the home side did not go past three hundred.Razzaq finished the innings with figures of 6 for 79, whereas Wasim took three wickets for 67 runs.The start to Lahore’s innings was quite confident, they had reached 111 for the loss of just one wicket. Imran Farhat played beautifully for his 67 but the fall of his wicket saw them reduced to 156 for five at tea. Abdur Razzaq showed his all-round skill to the utmost as he rescued his side from complete disaster. He made a fine half-century at a stage when wickets were tumbling at the other end. It was mainly due to his efforts that Lahore managed to pass two hundred runs and their innings was closed at 218.For Karachi, the young right-arm fast bowler Mohammad Sami took five wickets for 64. Afridi, bowling not so gentle medium pacers with Moin standing back to him, took three for 75.After taking a first innings lead of 79 runs, Karachi looked well set to win the match comfortably, the idea of chasing anything in excess of 200 in the fourth innings of the match looking very remote. However, Wasim Akram and Abdur Razzaq had their own ideas and helped tilt the match towards Lahore.The duo exploited the conditions at the National Stadium to their utmost advantage. Both bowling with enthusiasm, one with the savvy of variety as a seasoned campaigner and the other of youth and fire, completely unsettled the strong batting line-up of Karachi. Out of the total 43 overs played by Karachi, they bowled around 39 overs between them, to bundle out the home side for a paltry 104 in their second innings, with none of the batsmen getting past twenty runs.Razzaq took ten wickets in the match as he bagged four wickets for 54 runs in the second innings. Wasim, rediscovering his rhythm and stamina, bowled 18 overs in the second innings taking six for 36.Requiring 184 to win, Lahore started their second innings cautiously, with the first three overs being maidens because the Karachi attack, led by the new pacer, Mohammad Sami and Shahid Iqbal bowled very tightly.The visitors lost their first wicket with the total at 20. This led to a flurry of wickets as the Lahore batsmen found it really hard to cope with this accurate bowling by Karachi.At 66/6, the match seemed pretty much over for Lahore, but Humayun Farhat, the hard-hitting wicket-keeper batsman, came to his team’s rescue, adding 63 valuable runs for the 7th wicket with left-hander Mohammad Hussain, and then 49 more for the 8th wicket with Wasim Akram.Humayun was out at last when the visitors were just five runs away from a superb victory. He made a valiant 63 off just 48 balls, before the match was wrapped up by the winning, though somewhat streaky shot from Waqas Ahmed.The credit, however, goes to The Management of the match who prepared an excellent wicket for the final of the biggest domestic tournament in Pakistan. Sympathies for cricket lovers all over the country who were deprived of live telecast or radio broadcast of the match for reasons best known the concerned people. However, credit to PCB and CricInfo for efforts to bring internet live ball-by-ball coverage of this final on their websites www.pcb.cricket.org and www.cricinfo.com so that a vast worldwide audience could participate in a thriller.