Courtyard Marriott and InterContinental Riyadh Hotel scored victories over separate opponents at resumption of elimination round in the 16th Annual Riyadh Inter-Hotels Cricket Tournament 2015

The tournament is hosted by Sheraton Riyadh Hotel & Towers through the kind patronage of GM Paul C. Dunphy for the benefit of the children of UNICEF.

In the first match in the morning, Makarim Hotel won the toss and elected to field. At the outset, their decision seemed a smart move as they got their first breakthrough in the third over on 17 runs with the wicket of Sumith Asanka who contributed only 12 runs and was run-out. Captain Prince Poulose show some resistance and played a good innings of 41 runs and, after his departure, Sajjad Hussain produced a good innings for 47 runs with 5 sixes and a four. Courtyard Marriott managed to set a huge target of 158 runs for Makarim Hotel.

Iqbal was Makarim’s best bowler with 3 wickets in 4 overs and giving up only 30 runs, while his teammate Mubashir took 2 wickets with only 23 runs.

Chasing a huge target, Makarim established at first a very good and healthy 59 runs off the first partnership of Iqbal, who was bowled out with 38 runs, and Naseer (24 runs). After the opening pair departed, Makarim simply collapsed and no batsman showed any resistance and the whole team was out on 129 runs.

Sumith Asanka was the best bowler of Courtyard Marriott taking 5 wickets and giving only 16 runs in 4 overs while Ahsan Karim got 3 wickets with 22 runs in 4 overs. Courtyard Marriott won by 28 runs.

In the afternoon, Riyadh Marriott won the toss and opted to bat first. It was a shaky start as Marriott’s main batsman did not perform well. Mozahid Aslam was caught by Sadaqat Abbasi for only 3 runs and Ruwan Samantha was caught by Saquib Hussain for only 2 . The succeeding batsmen did not show any resistance in light of InterContinental’s bowling attack and only Arshad Khan managed to get 17 runs before he was caught by Mohammad Javeed. Riyadh Marriott team set 106 runs target for InterCon.

InterContinental, chasing an easy target, had opener Mohammad Javeed on 38 runs before he was caught by Mozahid Aslam. Team captain Ismail Satti made 26 runs and Sadaqat 18 runs, and the rest of the total of 101 in 11.04 overs came from Showbiz and Batchaa. Thouseef Ahmed, the best bowler for InterContinental, claimed 2 wickets for 12 runs in 3 overs and Mohammed Shaqawat 2 wickets for 16 runs in 3 overs. InterContinental won by 7 wickets.