Asif who had earlier in the tournament made an unbeaten 83 against Rawalpindi Rams who also had the services of Shoaib Akhtar, continued to demonstrate his batting skill and punished Eagles with absolute and elegant ease. He faced 40 balls and scored 57 with the help of one six and seven fours. Asil is being called the ‘find of the tournament’ by the commentators on television.

Earlier, the Eagles set a modest target of 161 runs for the Wolves. The Eagles’ batsmen failed to repeat their performance against the Karachi Dolphins in the morning session and succumbed before some fine bowling and fielding by their opponents.

Tauqeer Hussain and Imran Khalid effectively checked them with two wickets each for 29 and 34 respectively. Kamran Akmal remained the highest scorer with 34 off 26 balls. Ashfaq Ahmed (27), Sohail Ahmed (24) and Ali Hussain (24) also made useful contributions.

Mohammad Hafeez and Shahid Muzaffar partnered to provide the Wolves a decent 56 runs stand. Hafeez played an aggressive innings of 35 off 16 balls. He hit two sixes and five fours. Shahid Muzaffar also played well and made 21 off 12 balls. Mohammad Salman remained unbeaten on 26. Salman Butt grabbed two wickets for 38 runs.

(Article: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only.
Copyright © 2005 Asif Sohail)