Natiob 'B' vs Asker
Asker won the toss on a sunny morning in Drammen and decided to bowl first. Tara(1/20) and Hashir(1/26) opened the bowling for Asker. Tara has the first break-through, fooling a young Shafiq into leaving the ball, only for him to see the ball crash into the stumps. Hashir bowled with plenty of pace at the other end, sometimes testing Israr's keeping skills. Nation consolidated for sometime, when first change Qasim(1/25) got Hashim bowled. Junaid walked in to join Osama, but Mehdi soon had Osama caught behind, Israr making no mistake.Jamal came and went without troubling the scorer, Mehdi(3/10) accurate as always. Khawar joined the skipper in the centre and put on Nation's best partnership(38 runs).
The left handed Mirza(2/9) came on to bowl, and the change in angle worked immediately. Mirza got Junaid to edge behind and bowled Khawar. Israr(1/21) bowled a tight nagging line, giving the ball plenty of flight. He was rewarded with a wicket soon and gave away just 21 off his 6 overs. Hashir and Mehdi then cleared up the tail quickly, Asker needing 123 to win.
After giving an inspiring talk to his players, Khayyam(2) walked out with Israr to chase down an easy looking total. He fell in the first over, trying to slap a short ball (later blaming his bad shot on Ravi's camera). Qasim had gone missing with Mirza's car , so Tara(1) went in at number 3. His bad form with the bat continued, edging to the keeper. Ravi(1) joined Israr, and came back immediately, falling lbw again. Asker now needed some stable batting, and Ali Ahmed(35) was upto the task. He batted very sensibly, defending the good balls and punishing the bad ones. Israr(11) was then unlucky to fall LBW, just when he was looking good. Qasim(8) was back by now, and he joined Ali in the middle. He was begining to look good, hitting a 4, before falling LBW to what seemed an unfair decision again. Mr.Dependable Mehdi(21?) then walked to the centre, and calmed things down. Together Ali and Mehdi put on a 50 run partnership in 10 overs, almost sealing the match. Ali was run-out after failing to spot a fielder (though the scorer decided that it was Mehdi who was run-out). Ali(19) replaced Ali and hammered the bowling around. He fell just before the winning runs were scored, Hashir(4*) came in to finish things off.
The scorecard can be found here.