Faisalabad bag Under-19 Cricket trophy

KARACHI: Faisalabad lifted the trophy after routing Karachi Blues by an innings and 66 runs on the second day of their four-day final of the Inter-Region Under-19 Three-day Tournament 2018-19 at Mirpur Cricket Stadium in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, on Sunday.

In response to Karachi Blues’ first innings total of 104 all out, Faisalabad resumed their innings from their overnight score of 237-3 and went on to post 308-8 in the stipulated 83 overs first innings restriction to take a huge 204 runs lead. Besides Mohammad Ifran Khan’s fine 114, Zohaib Amanat (58), Ahmed Butt (43) and Ali Haider (41*) also batted with perfection to take their team to a strong position. Nadir Shah got 6-93. After facing a huge lead, Karachi Blues once again failed to click in their batting and were folded for 138 in the 36th over in their second innings. Haris Bin Tahir (31), Saif Ali (28) and Ali Nasim (25) were the leading scorers.

Ali Mustafa and Asim Iqbal bowled exceptionally well by taking four wickets each. Asim finished the game with 11-75. Aftab Gilani and Mohammad Kaleem supervised the match. The winners were handed over a trophy and a purse of Rs600,000 while the runners-up went away with Rs300,000.

Similarly, Rs25,000 each was handed over to Asim Iqbal (Faisalabad, man-of-the-match), Afaq Ahmed (Abbottabad, best batsman, 563 runs) and Suleman Shafqat (Faisalabad, best bowler, 46 wickets).