KARACHI: Multan and Faisalabad secured comfortable victories in the opening round of matches in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy Grade-II Cricket Tournament on Monday.

With Bahawalpur sealing a crushing defeat of Larkana inside two days on Sunday and the game between Sialkot and Abbottabad abandoned without a ball being bowled due to incessant rains in Sargodha, the focus on Monday’s third and final day was on the remaining two fixtures.

Multan were too powerful for Quetta as the home team wrapped up an innings and 39-run success at the Multan Cricket Ground.

Resuming at 194-9 in reply to Multan’s 357- declared, Quetta could add just five more runs to the overnight tally before being bowled out for 199.

Forced to follow on, the visitors were dismissed for 119 in just 35 overs of the second innings. Test spinner Zulfiqar Babar helped himself three cheap wickets for four runs in eight overs with left-arm pace bowler Rizwan Haider taking 3-37.

Dera Murad Jamali failed miserably in their chase for 241 runs to outwit Faisalabad at the Iqbal Stadium in Faisalabad when they mustered a second-innings total of 137 in 53.2 overs. Usama Razzaq batted circumspectly to make 39 from 92 deliveries in 150 minutes, but no one else supported him.

Imran Khalid, fresh from his exploits in the Pakistan Super League in the UAE where he played a key role in Misbah-ul-Haq’s Islamabad United clinching the title, snared four wickets for 37 runs with his slow left-armers.

The pace duo of Fahim Ashraf (3-27) and Ehsan Adil (3-39) shared the remaining six wickets.

The second round of fixtures will begin from Wednesday.

Scores and results on Monday (final day of three):

Group ‘A’:

At Multan Cricket Stadium, Multan: Multan beat Quetta by an innings and 39 runs.

MULTAN 357-8 declared in 82 overs (Shahzad Ali 160 not out, Abdul Rehman Muzammil 64, Rizwan Haider 47; Gohar Faiz 3-74, Baz Mohammad 2-54); QUETTA 199 in 70 overs (Shoaib Khan 85, Irfanullah 48 not out; Zulfiqar Babar 3-27, Majid Ali 3-81, Zia-ul-Haq 2-51) and 119 in 35 overs (Shoaib Khan 26; Zulfiqar Babar 3-4, Rizwan Haider 3-37, Majid Ali 2-30, Zia-ul-Haq 2-42) .

Group ‘B’:

At Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad: Faisalabad beat Dera Murad Jamali by 103 runs.

FAISALABAD 215 in 57.3 overs (Fahim Ashraf 50, Atif Manzoor 36, Mohammad Talha 36, Imran Khalid 30, Ali Rafiq 29; Qutubuddin 3-36, Usama Razzaq 2-6, Zahoor Ahmed 2-67) and 172 in 41 overs (Asif Ali 66, Mukhtar Ahmed 43, Fahim Ashraf 28 not out; Zahoor Ahmed 6-47, Shabbir Ali 2-3); DERA MURAD JAMALI 147 in 46.4 overs (Fahim Ashraf 5-57, Imran Khalid 2-10, Mohammad Talha 2-33) and 137 in 53.2 overs (Usama Razzaq 39; Imran Khalid 4-37, Fahim Ashraf 3-27, Ehsan Adil 3-39).

At Sports Stadium, Sargodha: SIALKOT vs ABBOTTABAD — match abandoned as a draw without a ball being delivered.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2016