Huraira ton puts Northern in charge of QAT final

LAHORE: Mohammad Huraira scored the fourth century of the season and Umar Amin’s unbeaten 79 put Northern in a position of strength on the second day of the first-class Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final against Sindh at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium on Sunday.

Huraira and Umar’s unbroken 269-run partnership for the third wicket helped Northern post 296 for two in 63 overs at stumps. Northern are leading by 12 runs with eight first-innings wickets in hand.

The right-handed batter Huraira, who entered into the final with 803 runs, is now topping the batting charts with 996 runs. The 20-year-old also topped last year’s first-class Quaid-e-Azam Trophy with 986 runs.

In pursuit of Sindh’s first innings score of 284, Northern’s innings started poorly as Hasan Raza (14) and Abdul Faseeh (0) were dismissed by Muhammad Umar with 27 runs on the board in the ninth over.

Opening batter Huraira was joined by captain Umar and both batters played shots at will, never allowing Sindh bowlers to settle down. Huraira brought up his fourth century of the tournament off 118 balls. His 150 runs came off 161 and returned unbeaten on 193 off 202 balls, smashing 29 fours and two sixes. Left-handed Umar’s 145-ball innings included 11 boundaries.

Earlier, resuming at the overnight score of 230 for seven, Sindh could only add 54 more runs as they were bowled out for 284 in 92.5 overs.Fawad Alam returned undefeated on 61 off 148 balls, smashing eight fours. Aamir Jamal and Musa Khan bagged three wickets each, while Mubasir Khan finished with two for 59 runs in 26 overs.