JEDDAH, 24 January 2003 — Traco Green down Kanoo in nail-biting finish. Traco Green scored an exciting last ball win over Kanoo by 3 wickets to enter the finals of the coveted 14th Kanoo League (Premier Division). In the other semifinal, Saudia Milk cruised past Mahmood Saeed by 4 wickets.
Kanoo openers got off to a good start as they put on 73 runs with Wasif at his best as he hit 40 quick runs of 26 balls with 5 fours and a six before he became over enterprising and got out. Nadeem Amin came but soon left and was followed by Shahid.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Taib was batting beautifully as he stroked the ball to all parts of the field and picked up ones and twos with the occasional boundary. He was out for an impressive 64 of 63 balls with 5 fours. Kanoo were struggling at 147 for 5 before Naeem Amin (32) and Azam Khan (28) battled it out to add 67 for the 6th wicket.
Kanoo were dismissed for 246 in the 35th over. Tariq, Niaz and Kaleem picked up 2 wickets each. In reply, Traco Green openers Niaz (23) and Nisar (39) started at a brisk rate but were soon dismissed and reduced to 58 for 2. They were further rocked by the pace of the Amin duo — Nadeem and Naeem as they reduced them to 102 for 4.
Thereafter, Baber settled down to some sensible batting display and built up the innings in the company of Rashid (19) and Tariq (28) both of whom lent valuable support. Baber mixed caution with aggression and shouldered the responsibility as he hit 59 off 50 balls inclusive of 6 hits to the fence before he and Tariq were out within 12 runs of each other to make them 187 for 6.
At this stage Kanoo were sensing victory as Traco Green required 57 runs in 5 overs. But Irfan Amin had a plan in mind as he went for the bowling to hit a quick-fire 32 runs. In the last 2 overs they required 24 to win of which they managed 15 in the 34th over with 9 required in the last over. They managed to scrape through with a single of the last ball of the match to give Traco Green a last ball breath-taking win and an entry to the Kanoo Cup finals for the second year in succession.
Mahmood Saeed got off to a bad start as they slumped to 34 for 2 but Maqbool stayed put scoring 31 runs with 4 fours and a six before he was dismissed. Thereafter Tariq (24) and Saleem Nahdi steadied the innings and put their team on a recovery path adding 53 runs for the 4th wicket before Imran struck telling blows with his spin to claim 4 wickets for 27 runs and was well supported by Khalid (2 for 25). Nahdi was dismissed at the stroke of lunch for a well made 49 runs but none of the lower batsmen put their heads down to build up a fighting score.
Mahmood Saeed were finally dismissed for 176 runs with 3 overs to spare. In reply Saudia Milk were also off to a bad start as they were reduced to 57 for 4 as they struggled to cope with the pace of Farooq (2 for 21). But Javed stood solid like a rock and in company of skipper Anees Malik (33) and Iftekhar (25) raised hopes of a win.
Javed paced his innings well as they had lot of overs to spare. He took 25 balls to enter into double figures a and thereafter opened up with a flurry of boundaries to end with an unbeaten 56 runs of 60 balls with 6 fours to guide his team to a 6 wicket win. Saudia Milk finally reached their target scoring 177 for 6 in 29.5 overs to meet Traco Green in the Kanoo Cup final, which will be a repeat of last year. (A. A. Merchant)
