JEDDAH, 5 February — Pakistan International School-Jeddah’s A and B teams will clash in the final of the Arab News, Power Horse inter-school tournament to be played on the Jeddah Cricket League grounds on Thursday. The two won their semis last Thursday — PISJ-A beating Indian International School-Jeddah (IISJ) by 77 runs and PISJ-B defeating Pak-Eng-A by seven wickets.
The highlight of PISJ-A’s win was a solid knock of 100 by Rabie Zubar. In their allotted 20 overs, PISJ-A scored 197 for seven wickets. Azeem, Mudassar Ashraf and Ajmal Nazir took 3 and 2 wickets and a wicket each. In their effort to chase the target IISJ replied with 120 all out. The only IISJ batsman to score was Ammar who remained not out with 38. PISJ-A’s Zahid, Assad Makki and Syed Assad Ullah bagged 4 and 2 wickets and a wicket respectively.
In another match, Pak-Eng-A were all out for 118 with only three of their batsmen reaching double-digit figures. PISJ-B easily surpassed the target by losing just one wicket. Zain and Mubashir remained not out with 58 and 15 runs respectively. For PISJ-B, Shoaib Ali once again showed his bowling prowess by bagging four wickets. Zaid and Sabu Ahmed took two wickets each. Farhan took one other wicket.
PISJ-A is fancied to win the final going by its track record of the tournament. It consistently maintained its win throughout the league fixtures.
In the matches played on Jan. 24, PISJ-A beat Pak-Eng-A by a huge margin of 121 runs. Rizwan, Rabie and Shahzad were PISJ-A’s outstanding batsmen with 59, 51 and 45 runs. The same day IISJ entered the semis by defeating Pak-Eng-B by a similar big margin of 131 runs. Azeem, Mujahid and Faisal with 35, 48 and 42 runs shaped the IISJ innings in 20 overs. The third match of the day saw PISJ-B entering the semis by defeating Al Wadi International School by five wickets. PISJ found no difficulty in chasing Al Wadi’s total of 123 runs, thanks to good batting by Farhan (49) and Mubashir and Zain.
The fourth match of the day saw Bangladesh International School scoring a 21-run win over PCS (American). Faraz and Mughees batted well for PCS, while Bangladesh school’s Imran with his 54 was impressive. Three matches were played on Jan. 25. In the first match Pak-Eng-A, assisted by good batting by Faisal, Yasir and Nadir, recorded an 81-run victory over the Bangladesh school. Bangladesh school were skittled out for 96, thanks to an excellent bowling performance from all of Pak-Eng-A’s bowlers — Shoaib, Amin, Nadir, Imran and Athar. Al Wadi batted first and set a target of 168 runs.
In the third match of the day PISJ-B defeated IISJ by 54 runs. PISJ-B batted first and scored 182 runs for four wickets. In their chase IISJ score only 128 runs all out.
