ALKHOBAR, 9 January 2004 — The SAIS (Pakistani section) Cricket Championship was held here recently. Four teams participated in the tournament. Namely, Fahad House, Iqbal House, Abdulaziz House and Jinnah House.
The first match took place between Fahad House and Abdulaziz House at Mina Port. Batting first, Fahad House scored 156 for the loss of 6 wickets in the allotted 20 overs with notable performances by Kamran Saeed (63) and Khalid Maqsood (29).
Faisal Tariq of Abdulaziz House controlled the flow of runs by claiming 4 wickets for 31 runs. Abdulaziz House was restricted to 136 for the loss of 7 wickets. Saqib Munir scored 24 not out and Salman Rauf chipped in with a fighting 21.
Hassan Riaz claimed 3 wickets for 20 and Talha Tashfeen took 2 wickets for 19 runs. Talha also excelled in the field. Fahad House won by 20 runs.
The second match was played between Iqbal House and Jinnah House. Iqbal House won the match by 6 wickets. Jinnah House batting first scored 162 for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs whereas Iqbal House chased the required total in a nail-biting finish with three balls to spare. Usman Saleem and Wajahat Haider led the way with innings of 36 and 28 runs respectively.
The final was played between Fahad House and Iqbal House. Fakhar Abbasi, captain of Iqbal House won the toss and elected to field first. Talha Tashfeen, captain of Fahad House, was happy to bat first in order to set a target to avoid extra pressure.
Fahad House scored a tournament record score of 204 for the loss of 4 wickets. Ubaid Arif and Waseem Zahid opened the innings against the pace attack of Shiraz Siddiqui and Faisal Naveed.
Waseem Zahid could not last long and was out in the very first over playing across to Shiraz. Kamran Saeed then joined Ubaid Arif and both of them continued to play slowly in the beginning but opened up later. Ubaid was eventually bowled by Shiraz for a very well played and calculating innings of 58 runs. Salman Ali joined Kamran Saeed and both of them started to hit out. Salman Ali scored consecutive boundaries off the bowling of Ammar Ali. Trying to accelerate the scoring rate further both of them lost their wickets one after the other with Salman Ali scoring 13 runs and Kamran Saeed scoring a brilliantly executed 70 runs. After them Hassan Riaz and Kashif Iqbal continued till the end of the 25 overs with a well compiled 17 and 8 runs respectively. Shiraz took 3 wickets for 31 runs.
In response, Iqbal House scored 184 for the loss of 8 wickets in a closely fought match. They opened with Yasir Mughal and Wajahat Haider. Iqbal House lost Wajahat for 2 runs, who could not beat a direct hit from Ubaid Arif and was run out. Yasir Mughal was joined by Usman Saleem and they continued to face the pace attack of Salman Shakir and Mohammed Ahmed with confidence till their impetuosity cost them their wickets in quick succession.
Yasir Mughal was induced into giving a catch to Kamran off the bowling of Kashif Iqbal and Usman Saleem was caught off the bowling of Salman Ali. The two new batsmen Omair Nadeem and Wasi played for a long time and kept the score board ticking with ones and twos.
Omair Nadeem was caught at the score of 29 runs by Talha Tashfeen off his own bowling. It was a brilliant one-handed catch by Talha to a full-blooded drive from Omair. Fakhar joined Wasi and the scoreboard kept moving at a slow pace as good field placing by Talha Tashfeen restricted the flow of runs.
Being behind the required run rate Iqbal House tried to accelerate but the reintroduction of Salman Shakir in the attack resulted in the loss of Wasi who was clean bowled by Salman Shakir for 25 runs and the next man Ammar Ali was caught at short cover off the first ball he faced from Salman Shakir. Faisal Mughal then joined Fakhar but was bowled by a Talha googly which he did not read. Shiraz Siddiqui then joined Fakhar but was out to the very first ball he faced from Talha Tashfeen.
