World Of Sports

The sixth match of the ICL 20s World Series featured the big match between ICL Pakistani take on the ICL World, at the Lal Bahadur Stadium Hyderabad. An exciting encounter was in store with the final league match shaping into a virtual semifinal battle between the two formidable sides for a place in the final.

Jeffery Dujon in his pitch report predicted a good batting track in store making it ideal for a high scoring match.

In the end the ICL world side scored a convincing victory by 6 wickets to enter the final of the ICL 20s World Series.

Inzamam won the toss & elected to bat. The Pakistani side opened their account with the great Abdul Razzaq & Taufeeq Umar. The new ball bowlers for the ICL World side came up with some disciplined line & length bowling that resulted in a slow start for the Pakistanis, placed at 15/0 at the end of 3 overs. The pressure soon got on to the openers with Razzaq lofting one from Tuffey, to walk back to the dugout cheaply for 11, on the Pakistani score of 17. Van der Wath got into the act in the fifth over sending back the ICL Pakistani captain Inzamam, to put the side in serious trouble at 19/2.

Taufeeq was joined by Imran Farhat and the left hand got into the repair act taking the Pakistani side to 49/2 at the end of the 7th over. At that point Cairns brought on his premier spinner Upul Chandana, who responded immediately breaking the promising partnership in form of Taufeeq wicket. At the half way mark of their innings the ICL Pakistani batting card read a dismal 62/5. Chandana struck again in the11th over trapping the mainstay of the Pakistani side Hasan Raza for only 4. The success of Chandana got Cairns to introduce spin from both end in form of Chandana & Elliott. The spinners wrecked the ICL- Pakistani middle order taking 5 wickets between them at the 16th over mark. With 4 overs to go the Pakistani side was placed precariously at 101/8.

In the end with no application whatsoever the Pakistani bating ended a lackluster display at 113 all out in 19.4 overs.

The World side reply came in the form of Elliott & Harvey opening the innings .Both openers got off to a positive start taking the score to 16 for no loss at the end of 2 overs. By the 5th over mark the ICL World were off to a rocking start at 49 for no loss scoring at nearly 10 runs per over.

Afridi was introduced in the 6th over who responded with the two big wickets of Elliott & Vincent to get the ICL Pakistani side back in the match with a slim chance. However Harvey had other plans & in company of the classy Martyn batted sensibly to avoid any more hiccups.

At the half way mark of their innings the ICL world side were right on target at 77/2, needing only 37 runs at less than 4 runs per over & 8 wickets in hand.

In the end the ICL world side led by a solid half century from Ian Harvey, made short work off the modest target achieving it easily in the 18th over with 6 wickets to spare.

Brief Scores: ICL Pakistani 113 all out in 19.4 overs (Farhat 20, Umar 19, Elliott 3/17, Chandana 2/26, Hall 3/22)lost by 6 wickets to ICL World 117/4 in 17.2overs( Harvey 52*, Elliott 26, Afridi 4/16)