| Villa Park overpowers Gladiators in a run fest (25 overs game), Sohail Rehmani shines with the ball to claim 4 wickets |
| On an overcast and heavy Sunday morning, Villa Park faced Gladiators (2002 ACC Champions) who was returning to ACC fold after the break of 2 years. Gladiators won the toss by default and put Villa Park in to bat in a rain shortened contest. Fluent batting pair of Mujtaba (2) and Zeyad (53) opened the innings, but Mujtaba failed to continue his good form and hold out to mid on. Abdur Arif (8) stepped in to bat number 3, a troublesome position for Villa Park in the absence of Hassan Bakhshi. Gladiators started very well but ran into the might of Zeyad Imtiaz, who was in a devastating mood, playing his trademark powerful shots all around the park. Abdur Arif supported him well, but lost his wicket to Harris Effendi (2), who turned out to be the most impressive bowler for Gladiators. Fawad Agha (29) took over spot 4 in-place of struggling Haris Imtiaz, and he immediately found his groove placing the ball in gaps running hard. But run rate was never a problem, as ball was switched in 11th over which signaled a green light to ever ready Zeyad to start swinging his willow. Tide turned in Harun Ajmeris over when Zeyad dispatched 3 mighty sixes, all in different directions. Zeyad lost his wicket soon after reaching his fifty. In-form Uzair Ali (61*) joined Fawad Agha and put together a timely partnership, which was solely based on timing and running. Both batsmen frustrated Gladiators fielding by immaculate placement and hard running between the wickets. None of the bowler had the answer for this type of focused batting. Fawad lost his wicket in the later overs trying to hit second six of the over. Haris Imtiaz (24) joined blazing Uzair to refresh some of the old memories of these two guardians played in their career together. Haris started off with singles and twos then suddenly charged Vishan to 3 boundaries including a humongous six over mid wicket, but was undone in the last over by an over pitched delivery. Uzair finished the innings off with fireworks of his own, dispatching last 2 balls for 10 runs to bring up his well-deserved fifty. Gladiators known for chasing all sorts of score took the field against a very competitive VPCC bowling line-up. But relaxation of big score got their attackers as various extras and poor line and length helped Jamil Vohra (27) and Amir Khan (20) to develop a breezy partnership. Uzair tried all his options with no avail, as Gladiators bats keep swinging, and runs were flowing hard. At the time of desperation Sohail Rehmani (4) answered the call with consistent line and length and rewarded for his effort with 4 wickets. No other bowlers even cause a little concern for the batsmen. Apart from VPCC batting their fielding was also a great positive today, as they produced 4 run outs to peg back Gladiators in the ending stage of the game. Gladiators fell short by 22 runs, what turned to be a run fest. Mazhar Tabrezi (37) was the highest scorer only to be superseded by the wides (39) given by out of sort Villa Park bowling. Sohail Rehmani named man of the match for this game saving performance with the ball. |
