KARACHI: Multan, inspired by telling contributions from Zubair Saleem and skipper Matloob Qureshi, produced a flawless performance to humble Karachi in the final of the ICRC National Disabled T20 Cricket Championship here on Saturday.

What should have been a battle for supremacy turned out to be a one-way traffic at the National Stadium as Multan deservingly became the champions by outperforming last year’s runners-up Karachi in all departments while cantering to an eight-wicket cakewalk.

Left-arm paceman Zubair bowled a magnificent spell upfront as he took the wickets of Rehan Ali (1) Karachi skipper Arif Richard (19 off 19 balls) and Danish Ahmed (2) to leave the hosts struggling at 39-3.

Waheed Khan’s 28-ball 26 and Rao Javed’s run-a-ball unbeaten 33 gave their team something to bowl at.

But Multan held control throughout and only allowed Haroon Rasheed (18 off 21 balls, one four) to get into double figures among the remaining batsmen.

Man-of-the-match Zubair finished with excellent figures of 4-24 in four overs while slow left-armer Mohammad Asif gave nothing away with his four overs fetching two wickets for just 12 runs.

Multan meant business from the onset of their chase for the target. Matloob led from the front to strike four boundaries in an undefeated 43-ball 57 as he and Majid Hussain (46 off 47, six fours) shared a splendid opening partnership of 104.

Left-arm Noman Shabbir bagged two wickets but it was far too late for Karachi to stop Multan completing a resounding win.

Matloob was humble in his reaction to Multan’s title-winning feat and attributed it as a gift for the people back home.

“It was a grand teamwork that led to our becoming the champions. We can never forget this day since as a group we wanted to do the city of Multan proud,” Matloob told Dawn.

“Everyone contributed but Zubair was simply brilliant with the new ball. Those early wickets created panic in the Karachi camp and we knew as long as the pressure was maintained, Multan would be chasing a modest target.”

Richard, on other hand, expressed disappointment after Karachi lost their second successive final.

“Credit to Multan. No doubt they outplayed us in the final. But we should have done much better than being restricted to a low total,” Richard said while speaking to Dawn. “One can’t expect to win when a team make such a low score on a perfect batting pitch. Overall, we are disappointed to end up the losing side for the second consecutive year.”

The only consolation for Karachi, won earned Rs100,000 as the runners-up, was that Noman was declared the tournament’s best bowler for his overall haul of 10-97 and Haroon was adjudged best fielder for holding six catches.

Matloob won the best batsman award for scoring 217 in the championship while his team-mate Jahanzaib Tiwana was named the best player for his grand all-round contributions of 196 with the bat and 7-83 with the ball.

Former Test all-rounder and ex-chief selector Salahuddin Ahmed, who was the chief guest at the final, distributed the prizes. Also present on the occasion were Jerome Alexander, Deputy Head of Delegation ICRC, PDCA president Saleem Karim, Patron Zakria Karim, ex-Test fast bowler Azeem Hafeez, tournament director Javed Amin, Aezaz-ur-Rehman, Nasim Yousuf, Younis Alam, Imran Latif, Waqas Gillani, PDCA secretary and tournament secretary Amiruddin Ansari, co-ordinators Jameel Kamran, Aslam Breach, Kaleem Alam, Saeed Ali and media manager Mohammad Nizam.

Besides taking the winners’ trophy, Multan received Rs200,000.

Result:

Multan beat Karachi by eight wickets.

KARACHI 112-8 in 20 overs (Rao Javed 33, Waheed Khan 28, Arif Richard 19, Haroon Rasheed 18; Zubair Saleem 4-24); MULTAN 113-2 in 16.2 overs (Matloob Qureshi 57 not out, Majid Hussain 46; Noman Shabbir 2-16).

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2015