Miscellaneous

Customs edge past HBL to meet NBP in the final of Patron's Trophy

Pakistan Customs defied all odds, brushing aside Habib Bank to reach the final of the Patron's Trophy Grade I tournament

Mahmood Ahmad
03-Apr-2001
Pakistan Customs defied all odds, brushing aside Habib Bank to reach the final of the Patron's Trophy Grade I tournament. Habib Bank, the leaders of the round robin league until the start of this round, bowed out of the tournament on the basis of inferior net run rate.
Sitting on 25 points before the start of the last round, Customs jumped on to 37 points, at par with Habib Bank (HBL). They only managed to squeeze through because of having a superior net run rate + 0.52 against the bankers' + 0.07.
National Bank, on the other hand, had no such worries. They emerged as the leaders of the round robin league, winning four of their seven matches. They thrashed Agricultural Bank in the last round match by seven wickets to take their points tally to 45, well ahead of both HBL and Customs.
HBL started the last round sitting pretty on 37 points, needing just a draw to ride into the final. However, that was not to be. It was perhaps their slackness against a comparatively weaker opposition (Wapda), which saw them going down by three wickets after scoring a meagre 126 in the first innings.
The HBL bowlers, in their turn, fought valiantly to deny Wapda a big lead in the first innings. The pace duo of Sajid Shah and Irfan Fazil bagged 4 wickets between them, before the off spin of Akram Raza (2 for 27) and the leg spin of Kaneria (3 for 46) combined to restrict Wapda to 181 in their first innings.
However, the HBL batsmen failed to deliver in the second innings as well, getting out for 174 and leaving a target of 120 to win the match. Wapda got to the target in 35 overs losing seven wickets in the process.
In second match of the round, and a very important one because it yielded the one of the finalists of the Trophy, Pakistan Customs whipped Allied Bank by an innings and 108 runs.
After restricting the opposition to 146 in the first innings, Customs piled up 425 thanks to some gritty batting display by Aamer Iqbal, the wicket keeper/batsman and Aamer Bashir, the skipper. Iqbal made a fine 129 whereas Bashir missed a well-deserved century by just three runs.
Spurred on by the their batsmen's good performance, the Customs bowlers made short work of ABL in the second innings, getting them all out for just 171 before the fourth day of the match.
In the third match of this round, National Bank came from behind to beat Agricultural Bank by seven wickets and booking a place in the final of the competition.
After conceding a first innings lead of nine runs, National Bank bowlers bowled superbly in the second innings to getting the opposition out for just 146. Their batsmen did the rest of the work in style as they knocked of the required 156 runs for the loss of just three wickets in 23 overs.
The fourth match of this round, played between Pakistan International Airlines and Khan research Laboratories was the only encounter of this round which ended in a draw, and that too only because of rain and bad light.
Although KRL managed to get three points from the match on the basis of first innings lead, taking their tally at par with PIA (13), they could not beat the opposition on net run rate. They now face relegation to the Grade II version of the Patron's Trophy the next year. Public Works Department will take KRL's place in the next Patron's Trophy (Grade I), owing to their victory, a few days ago, in the final of the Patron's Trophy Grade II.