Scorecard

Villa Park versus Windy, ACC Day Tournament 2008 1^st semi final; setting couldn’t be any better. Competing with Windy City is never easy, but energetic Villa Park playing their first semi final was possibly have the best player to player match up with Windy City. WC won the toss and elected to filed first and the decision paid dividend as Qasim Khan (5) dismissed Bilal Ahmed (5) early. Zeyad Imtiaz (29) gave some stability to the innings with Hassan Bakhshi (15) but as lethal combination of Danish (0) and Harun (4) was introduced in the bowling, VPCC batting started to rattled. None of the batsmen seem to have answer to their nagging line and length. Bashir Iqbal (8) and Uzair (6) stumbled too before innings was revived by magnificent Haris Imtiaz (44) with resilient Fawad Agha (16). But both failed to bat the full quota of overs, and VPCC lower order did not affect the proceedings as well. Villa Park scored mere 148, Qasim and Harun proving to be the main destructor.

No target is easy in playoff environment, with Windy City missing injured Sunny Khan and Kashif Butt. Asif Ali (7) opened with Kashif Zaheer (5) to face Haris Imtiaz (1) and Ahmad Bakhshi (2). Villa Park demonstrated good control in the early goings and kept getting wickets at crucial interval with Ahmad Bakhshi opening the account to dismiss Asif Ali, who was brilliantly caught by Arsalan Ali. On this crucial day VPCC dropped few catches to give some breathing space to Windy City at critical junctures. Also supporting the Windy City cause was the extras delivered in the middle session. Worth mentioning here is the spell from Zeyad (2) and Haris (1). Both bowled with great control specially Haris who swung the ball viciously troubling the best in the business. With Windy City down 5 for 57 and 6 for 90, game seemed to be heading VPCC way but Vishan (30) and Hashim Raza (16*) and Danish (16*) displayed fine resistance to chase the score in the last over. On that day better team prevailed to face the mighty Cougars in the finals.

Note: Windy City defeated Cougars in the final to become 2008 champion.