Asker vs Haugerud
Asker were happy to bowl after losing the toss in another mid-week fixture against Haugerud.
Ibrahim and Waqas were in the squad after the previous day's crushing defeat against Sinsen.Tara(3/24) and Qasim(2/20) opened the bowling and started off well. Tara had his first wicket in the 3rd over, Mehdi taking a good catch at long-on, placed specifically for that shot by Khayyam. Qasim had his man in the next over, Mirza taking a well judged catch. He had another wicket in his next over, bowling Ali with a yorker. Haugerud then went about consolidating their innings. Mehdi and Mirza continued the good work, frustrating the Haugerud batsmen with some tight bowling. Just when the partnership was starting to look dangerous, the left-handed Mirza(1/13) got his man bowled. After the break, Khayyam kept the pressure on and introduced the combo of Hashir and Ibrahim. Hashir(2/28) bowled fast, Ibrahim(0/26) bowled sharply. Hashir had two wickets, Ibrahim was unlucky not to get one. In the middle of all this, Adnan put his hand out to a strong cover drive and was hit on his fingers. He thought he had broken his finger, while Khayyam was angry for missing the run-out. After applying plenty of magic spray, Adnan went to third-man where he mis-judged a tough chance leading to angry words from Khayyam. Tara came back for the final overs, but had some problems with his run-up, his shoes, the ball and Mirza's hairstyle. This lead to the umpire's famous words "ball galat nahi hai, aapka bowler galat hai". Waqas replaced Tara and was very good in this final two overs. Asker were happy after retricting Haugerud to 149.
Hashir(13) and Tara(63) opened the batting for Asker. Hashir took no time to settle down, hammering two fours over the top of the fielders before getting out. Tara took his time to get started but found his groove soon. He hit some lovely drives including a beatuifully timed lofted cover drive for six. Qasim looked good till he mis-read the length to a full delivery, playing all over it. Khayyam(53*) arrived at the crease and proceeded to demolish the Haugerud bowling hitting 3 massive sixes and 2 fours.Tara got out bringing Ali to the crease. Ali was in a hurry to finish the match and was bowled. Mehdi played back to a full length delivery and was adjudged LBW. Khayyam then finished off the match in style with another 6. Asker took home a well-deserved 4 points to bring a rare smile to the face of their captain.
The scorecard of the match can be found here.