Scorecard

Written by Furqan Qureshi

June 17th 2010, a hot summer afternoon when Villa Park CC without their skipper Uzair Ali faced one of its oldest rivals Windy City CC. Villa Park won the toss and decided to bat first. Zeyad Imtiaz (15) and Mujtaba Baqir (20) open the innings for Villa Park, on the other side Qasim Khan (1) and Hashim Raza (1) started the attack. Both batsmen started playing sensibly by taking singles and double and hitting a boundary or two in each over. Mujtaba was first to depart off the bowling of Affan Kareemullah (3). This bought the little champ Hassan Bakhshi (45) to the crease, but Affan took out Zeyad as he was given LBW when the ball hit the inside edge of the bat and then hit his pad. Now with 2 quick wickets down Haris Imtiaz (5) walked in but couldn’t find his touch and became the third victim of Affan. With Haris gone and skipper not present Mr. Dependable Fawad Agha (28) walked in to save the day both batsmen faced the attack from Windy City but kept on scoring runs and few occasional boundaries. While Villa Park were looking to set a decent total Fawad departs followed by Hassan Bakhshi, another dodgy LBW on a ball which was pitch outside leg stump and hit him on pads. Now with 2 new batsmen on the crease Arif Hockla (13) and Arsalan Ali (5) scored some quick runs but in doing so Arif lost his wicket, Furqan Qureshi (6); Navaid Ali (13); Ahmad Bakhshi (10) which includes a huge six off Hashim put a respectable total of 179.

Villa Park took the field and Haris Imtiaz (0) & Ahmad Bakhshi (2) started the proceedings. Taha Baggia (61) and Kashif Butt (3) open the innings. Ahmad Bakhshi send Kashif back to the pavilion in his 2nd over. Ali Agha (1) came in but couldn’t survive the thunderbolts Ahmed was shooting at him. Arif Malick (26) now joined Taha, both of these batsmen played the innings sensibly as few catches were dropped by Villa Park which gave these batsman new life. Furqan Qureshi (3) was brought on to break this partnership and that is what Furqan did. Arif was caught at mid-on by Zeyad. With run rate below 5 runs per over Mir Ali (53) came to bat and started milking Villa Park’s bowlers as he made a quick 53 of 35 balls. This broke the back bone of Villa Park’s fielding and it seemed like they gave up the match. With less then 15 runs needed Mir was given leg before of the bowling of Zeyad Imtiaz (2). Furqan Qureshi and Zeyad Imtiaz both took 2 wickets in 2 consecutive balls but it was too late as Windy City won the game by 3 wickets. Taha Baggia was announced man of the match for his excellent batting performance.