DAMMAM, 24 December 2004 — It is said that in the history of Eastern Province such cricket event was never produced. Approximately over 1,000 people from both the Indian and Pakistani communities attended the show.
Helping make this event a big success that it is were Zeid Al Rumaihi, Group HRD manager ABB ( Asea Brown Boveri ) and Mohammed Abdul Haleem, Group HRD coordinator, ABB who have sponsored the whole season of EPTA. The historic match was played at the Safco gound here recently.
After winning the toss Pakistani captain Khalid Siddique elected to bat. An early wicket led Indians to develop huge pressure on Pakistan. Abid Ali and Zubair sustained the pressure and put 43 valuable runs for the 6th wicket. Pakistan managed to score 143 runs for the loss of 7 wicket.
In their allotted overs, Abid 38 and Iftikhar scored 21 runs respectively at the end of the innings.
In return India lost 2 wickets at the score of 10 only. But Ghafoor and Saeed played wonderful innings and produced 95 runs partnership for the the 3rd wicket before Ghafoor got caught at his individual score of 64 runs. Saeed made an unbeaten 44 at the end of the Indian inning. India had to make 10 runs in the final over which looked easy as Saeed was still on the crease, but due to clouds and bad light Indians could score only 5 runs and lost to Pakistan by 4 runs.
Sikandar Farooqui and Rehan Qureshi of EPCA and Hussain Sange and Rafiuddin of Binzagr Co. both contributed to the success of the event by way of sponsorships. Zia of Zamil Real state commented that this event will be remembered for years to come.
