Scorecard

Villa Park faced the surprising number 2 seed Deccan Blues. Deccan Blues won the toss and put Villa Park in to bat hoping to repeat the first round clash proceedings. Villa Park opened with their Zeyad Imtiaz (12) and Bilal Ahmed (11). Zeyad started the innings with a bang when dispatching a ball to the square leg boundary in the first over. But demons in the pitch and slow field started impacting the contest. Deccan Blues bowled some immaculate line and length and sent back both openers for mere 29 runs. Bashir Iqbal (14) and Hassan Bakhshi (12) looked good initially but Bashir threw away his wickets trying to play across the line. Hassan was dismissed soon due to some proactive thinking on the part of D. Blues. Haris Imtiaz (20) joined by skipper Uzair Ali (30) instituted the rebuilding course, and focused on singles and occasional boundaries. Even though Haris Imtiaz was dismissed for not even hundred on the board, Villa Park batting showed some good mindset and skill to cope with devastating variable bounce. But at the score 128 Villa Park lost their stabilizers in the middle order Uzair (30) and Fawad (12). Arif Hockla (33*) with broken finger walked in with Furqan Qureshi (10*) left to support him. Arif Hockla brought all his experience in play in crunch time and put together inning saving partnership of 40* runs with Furqan also executing his compact defense and placement. Both batsmen shifted the momentum back toward Villa Park, as they posted defendable 168 runs in 30 overs.

Deccan Blues having won the regular season game against Villa Park on the same ground where confident even with out their ace batter Amber Abbas. Haris (3) started the second half and bowled a spotless first over but lost his touch a little in the remaining spell. On the contrary Bashir Iqbal (2) brought his A game to the plate, with ball swinging viciously and with good control, Jamshed (3) and Hafeez (6) couldn’t survive the assault. Asif (8), the savior of the last encounter did not have the answer either. Haris came back in the second spell to snatch 3 quick wickets. Deccan Blues never really threatened to chase the target. Zeyad (2) and Hockla (2) wrapped up the innings with 2 wickets each.

Arif Hockla was name player of the quarterfinal for his brave innings and controlled bowling. Villa Park will be facing the profuse Windy City in the semi final.