JEDDAH, 7 May 2004 — Saudia Milk and Mehmood Saeed won their matches in a near identical manner, beating their opponents by 92 and 94 runs respectively, United Motors Agencies and Contraco beat their rivals in an identical fashion — by 4 wickets each in the premier league matches which is sponsored by Kanoo and organized by Jeddah Cricket League (JCL) last week at JCL sports complex here. Saudia Milk elected to bat against the relatively lesser-experienced SGB Green. M. Javed fell cheaply but Mustafa Butt 55 and Syed Amer 83 anchored and sensibly scored runs — opting for singles mostly but not afraid to loft strokes when offered a loose ball. The other contribution came from Mr. Extras 49. Zulfiqar 16, Jabbar 25, Shakir 35 and Imran 28 also helped Saudia Milk to tally 289 for 8 in 35 overs. Young Shoaib was the pick of the bowlers with 3 for 55 and Hussein had 2 for 59. Fahad, Usman and Amir took one wicket each.
In reply, Shahbaz 35 Amer 47 pulled SGB Green around after an early loss of wicket. Once these two fell, other wickets tumbled. Fahad gave some hopes of a possible chase but Saudia Milk bowlers' experience won the day as SGB were shot out for 197 — SGB losing by 92 runs. Imran took 4 for 22, Jabbar 2 for 42, Shakir 2 for 33 while Khalid grabbed the prize wicket of Amer.
Mehmood Saeed captain Tareq Mehmood elected to bat after winning the toss and justified by his decision as their openers Irfan 73 and Wajahath 66 (retired) put on 140 runs, both scoring freely. Wajahath took aerial route couple of times in their delightful and strokeful innings as other batsmen that followed cashed in on the fine start. Farooq Gul, playing some scintillating strokes in his unbeaten 64 runs off 49 balls, and Kamran, smashing an unbeaten 33 off 23 balls, and Mr. Extras 33 lifted Mehmood Saeed to 289 for 4 in 35 overs. Irfan 2 for 44 and Wasif 2 for 44 were the pick of Kanoo bowlers. In reply, Kanoo started well as Wasif played comfortably against the best attack of the JCL Premier League went on to score 48 runs before he was caught by Saleem of the bowling of Amjad. Only Naeem Amin 32 and Zahid 21 resisted the perfect line and length bowling of their opponents, as Saleem Kapadia the old warhorse of MS was the pick of the match after capturing 4 for 21 in 6.1 overs. Azeem took 2 for 54, Farooq and Amjad grabbed one each as their team sealed victory by 94 runs.
SGB Baroom got a big jolt when their opener Shoeb was hurt while trying to hook the bouncer of Contraco seamer. But the "little master of Jeddah" carried on and proved to be the best batsman in the city with a courageous 98, while holding on like a rock at one end. Manjeet Kumar managed 20 but other batsmen fell cheaply. Later Waseeq, who remained unbeaten on 57, pulled his team around. Zeeshan scored 30 valuable runs as SGB managed to score 239 for 6 in 35 overs. Mohsin Mirza grabbed 2 wickets while Kalim, Irfan and Siraj managed to take one wicket each.
The Contraco batsmen started soundly as openers Kaleem 43 and Rashid 84 laid the foundation for their team to chase the total. Captain Babar too played a strokeful 45 runs as they reached 240 for 6 in 33.5 overs to gain victory by 4 wickets. Qasim Naqwi grabbed 2 for 42 while Mujahid, Waseeq and Tariq managed to get one wicket each.
Batting first the Young Athletes scored 246 against UMA, who right from the start launched a fusillade and chased the total with ease. Khalid Butt with his ability to hit the lofted shots cracked a wonderful 102 with the help of dozen boundaries and couple of sixes, as Umer Anwar gave support to Khalid with 52 valuable runs to steer their team to win by 4 wickets. They achieved 248 for 6 in 32 overs. Ghazanfar, Shakeel, Nadeem, Hussein, Arif and Javed took one wicket each for Young Athlete.
