JEDDAH, 23 April 2004 — IDB, Saudia Milk, Sadafco and SGB Green won in the fourth week matches of the Premier League organized by the Jeddah Cricket League (JCL) on a week that saw many highlights.
Mehmood Saeed won the toss and elected to bat first but saw Irfan going cheaply. But Kashif played well for his 36 (3 fours and a six) off 26 balls and Asghar hit 30 to set the ball rolling. Kamran made 32 but it was Azim’s 53 that was of value as he held one end intact.
Farooq Gull played some delightful strokes in his 53 off just 30 balls and took his team to 252 for 8 in their allotted 35 overs.
Rizwan 2 for 51, Haroon 2 for 39 bowled well while Siraj Khan, Saleem and Ibrahim took one wicket each.
In reply Sadafco began with a flourish as Kaleem made 34 of 25 balls, but wickets too fell in their chase.
Arif and Siraj Khan contributed 26 and 25 respectively before Haroon Abdullah’s match-winning unbeaten 63 that lifted Sadafco. He along with Mumrez Khan 24 and Kamran eased past the victory target 253 for 6 in 33.2 overs with the help of 27 extras which are 3 more than Sadafco’s 24. Amjad 2 for 39, Saleem Kapadia 2 for 38 bowled well.
SGB Baroom, batting first against Saudia Milk, scored 223 for 9 in their allotted 35 overs. Manjeet Kumar the centurion of the last week match, failed to contribute but Niaz Shah continued his form with a fine knock of 55 runs. Shoaib 48, Tariq 38, Waseeq 25 and an unbeaten 19 from Qasim Naqwi helped their team to give their opponent a fighting target. Imran took 3 for 34, Farooq 2 for 35 bowled well for their team. In reply, Saudia Milk started well and their openers M. Javed 70 and Mustafa 40 played comfortably. Later Shaker Khan made 40 and helped Saudia Milk win the match by 4 wickets. They scored 224 for 6 in 34 overs. Mujahed took 2 wickets while Qasim Naqwi, Tariq and Waseeq took a wicket each.
Islamic Development Bank (IDB) after winning the toss elected to bat and rattled up moderate total of 239 for 7 in 35 overs against Young Athlete. Javed Hussain and Jawad Khan build the innings with sedate efforts. Hussain made 32 runs while Jawad scored 45 runs and their efforts was embellished by Rashid Malik (20), Arif, the IDB Wall, with a bookish 50 runs and a match-winning display by Abid, who made a solid unbeaten 62 runs for his team. Only Shakeel impressed with 3 for 32 for his team. In reply, the Young Athletes started disastrously as their openers Nadeem and Ghazanfar cheaply. Their No. 3 batsman Arif Rana scored a patient 47 runs for his team than Munawar 44 and Shakeel 20 played some good shots later. But IDB’s Misbah, the slow spin expert, bowled the Young Athletes out for 173 in 29.1 overs to lift IDB to a 66 runs victory. Khawar too took 3 for 35 while Hafeez and Jawad Khan took one wicket each.
UMA, batting first, were bundled out for a mere 181 in 31 overs by SGB Green. The tally was boosted by 29 extras and fine knocks from Nasser 53, Nadeem unbeaten 42 and Khalid Butt 29. Fahad and Amir took 3 wickets each while Shoeb took 2 wickets. SGB Green started their reply well with openers Shahbaz 24 and Shoeb 37 in fine fettle. Then Shafiq (28 n.o.) and Amir (27) also scored when UMA conceded the match with the total at 127 for 2 in 20 overs.
