LAHORE: Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka 8-2 to clinch the inaugural SAARC Baseball Cup at the Punjab Stadium here on Sunday.

Pakistan remained unbeaten in the four-nation regional contest which also featured Nepal and Afghanistan.

Sri Lanka claimed the second position in the single-league contest, Afghanistan took the third spot while Nepal ended the competition at the bottom.Pakistan started their first innings against Sri Lanka with Imtiaz Ahmed making a score. Sri Lankan batters failed to make any score in their inaugural innings.

In the second innings, Pakistan couldn’t make any score while Sri Lankan batters made two scores through Khosla and Timmuni.

Both teams could not score in the third innings.

Sri Lanka enjoyed one-score lead till the end of the fourth innings. However, Pakistan batters regained composure to club Sri Lankan pitchers all around the park in the fifth innings. Hafiz Musaddaq made one home run for the hosts while his team-mates Imtiaz, Arshad, Zaheer, Asif Mushtaq also contributed one score each.

Sri Lankan batters could not make any score in their innings owing to very tight and accurate pitching by the home side especially by captain Ihsanullah.

Pakistan made one score in the sixth innings through Imtiaz and one more in the eighth innings, produced by Asif, to win the match by a six-score lead.

Earlier, the match started late as chief guest Punjab Education and Sports Minister Mian Mujtaba Rehman could not reach the venue on time.

The minister handed prizes to the players while also announcing on behalf of the Punjab chief minister, Rs1.5 million for the players and the team officials and Rs1 one million for the Pakistan Baseball Federation (PBF).

PBF President Shaukat Javed and Secretary General Khawar Shah were also present on the occasion.