LAHORE, 25 April 2005: Brilliant bowling by left-arm spinner Zeeshan Khan helped steer Multan Tigers to defeat Karachi Zebras by 41 runs in their opening match of the ABN-AMRO Twenty-20 Cup at the Gaddafi Stadium here on Monday.
Set to achieve a reachable target of 156, the Zebras were easily brushed aside for 114 due to Zeeshan’s excellent spin as he destroyed their batting line-up after openers Shadab Kabir and Khalid Latif had started-off with a fine opening stand of 52. Neglected fast bowler Abdul Rauf got the wicket of Khalid who scored 26 off 24 balls with the help of five fours.
Tariq Haroon and Shadab added another 8 runs for the second wicket. Shadab was caught by Shabbir off Kamran Hussain for 23. At that stage Zeeshan rose to the occasion and completely mesmerised the batsmen with his guile and from 83 for 3 he bowled the whole team out for 114 in 19.3 over. Zeeshan finished with 5 for 19 and was declared Man of the Match.
Earlier, Yasir Arafat’s 51 off 46 balls with the help of four boundaries and later on some blistering batting by Hussain Abbas, 25 off 12 balls with the help of three huge sixes, helped Multan score 155 for 6 in the allotted 20 overs.
They lost their first wicket with 11 runs on the board but Yasir and Aamer Bashir added 52 runs for the second wicket. Bashir made 35 off 33 balls and hit five fours. Asif Iqbal scored 20 and hit one six and two fours in his eight-ball innings. Atif Maqbool too 3 for 20.
