JEDDAH, 16 April 2004 — Mahmood Saeed, IDB, SGB Baroom and Contraco advanced with wins in the third week matches of Friday Premier League, organized by Jeddah Cricket League (JCL).
Saudia Milk got a jolt as opener Imran was caught and bowled by Farooq when the score was at 6. Their in-form batsman Amer Syed was also bowled by Amjad for 8. Mustafa scored 47 and Zulfikhar 51. Arif Mehmood 34, Anis Malik 33 and Arif Nawaz 26 struggled to build up the score to 246 all out in 33.4 overs. Azeem was the pick of the bowlers taking 4 for 32 , and Amjad captured 2 for 46.
In reply, Mehmood Saeed’s top order collapsed and at one stage they were 38 for 4. Wajahat and Tariq Mehmood then had a 130 runs partnership. Tariq Mehmood scored 71, while Wajahat with cramps in his legs, scored 47. After that Azeem took charge and executed some wonderful shots. He remained unbeaten on 48. Mahmood Saeed were neck to neck and were fallowing the required run rate set by their opponents, lost important wickets of Farooq who made 12 off 7 deliveries while Muhammad Amjad who made the victory possible hitting the match winning 17 runs in just 9 balls, Mehmood Saeed won by 3 wickets.
Jabbar was the most successful bowler for his team and took 4 for 36 while Farooq took 2 for 43.
At Kanoo grounds, Kanoo elected to bat first with their openers Wasif scoring 41 and Muhammad Tayyeb 19 runs respectively. But both batsmen were victims of Irfan Sr. Nadeem Amin the star batsman of Kanoo came into bat and went on to score 59 off 57 balls. Kanoo were all out for 210 in 31 overs.
Shiraz and Irfan Jr. took 3 wickets each for 8 and 28 runs respectively.
In reply, Contraco’s opener Rashid scored 55 runs and his partner Kaleem just 19 runs. Mohsin Mirza remained unbeaten on 55, while Babar scored 37. Contraco achieved the target in 32 overs losing 3 wickets in the process. Azam Khan took two wickets.
At Saudia Milk grounds, SGB Baroom Green lost their opener Amer just for 4 runs but Shoeb Ali did the rescuer job as he scored 39 runs. Left-hander Fahad played some good strokes in his innings of 32 runs. Wasif also made 37 valuable runs, but none of the lower order batsmen contributed and folded at 157 for all out in 28 overs. Jawad Khan took 4 for 32, and Abid 4 for just 15 runs. In reply, IDB’s Khawar went on to score 40 runs. Wickets were tumbling at regular intervals until Muhammad Arif and Jawad Khan came to the rescue. Arif made 28 runs and Jawad hit 17 runs off 10 balls. IDB managed to escape the defeat winning the match by 3 wickets.
At Zuhier Zahran grounds, Sadafco’s Ibrahim Bin Mehfooz and Zahid Khan started well and lost their first wicket at 28. Haroon Abdullah shared valuable runs scoring 60 and Arif made 41 runs. Sadafco managed 225 all out in 34.2 overs. Wasiq and Zahid took 2 wickets each.
In reply, SGB Baroom’s openers Shoaib (85) and Manjeet Kumar (101) built the innings and took their team to victory. Sadafco lost by 6 wickets.
