Qatar season starts with expats tournament (5 Dec 1999)

5 December 1999

Qatar season starts with expats tournament

The Qatar Cricket Association season began in October with a fournation expatriate tournament. Here Ronald Mendonca provides all the details:

Qatar Cricket Association (QCA) organized their opening of season 1999-2000 with a four nations cricket tournament billed as Al-Rawabi Nations Cup 1999". This tournament was sponsored by Al- Rawabi.

The four nations' teams were India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Qatar consisting of registered QCA expatriate players. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were represented by players from their nations whereas the Qatar teams was a mixture of all the three nationalities. As you may know Qatari nationals have yet to take up cricket as a sport!

QCA is however, endeavouring their best to bring as many Qatari nationals to play cricket at school and club level.

Cricket has been played over the past years in the suburban areas, and the Four Nations Cup was played in the city.

A ground in the heart of the city was developed by local contracting Companies on behalf of Qatar Cricket Association. For the first time a cricket tournament was played on a cement wicket. Earlier cricket was played on matting over asphalt. QCA were very happy to bring this tournament into the City, so that it became easily accessible to the general public.

The Nations Cup started off with the first match being played on Friday, 22nd October, between Qatar X1 and Sri Lanka X1; while the second match was played on Friday, 29th October between India X1 and Pakistan X1 and with the final match played between the Sri Lanka and Pakistan on 5th November.

There was a cricketing fever which gripped the expatriates and specially supporters of their nations attending the matches in large numbers bringing with them their drums and trumpets. The teams were all predicting a win.

The first two preliminary matches were played on 35-over basis during the morning session, from 7-10am and afternoon session from 1- 4pm. The final match was played on 40-overs basis.

Qatar team were sporting the maroon colour cap, Indian team the blue, Pakistan the Green and Sri Lanka the Yellow.

The teams consisted of the following players:

Qatar XI - Azhar Butt (Capt.), Nadeem Roomi (V.Capt.), Mohammed Foumi, Mohd.Jahangir, Haleem, Shahraz, Moazzam, Imtaiz, Mohd.Mannan, Anwar-ddin, Ifthkar, Arshad, Riazuddin Babu, Abrar Hussain, Zee Waqar, Hassan, Malik Nazar (Manager).

Sri Lanka XI - Priyantha Lal (Capt), Priyantha Ganegoda (V.Capt), Rillegoda, Nishantha, Sriyantha, Dinesh, Chaminda Bandara, Malaka, Munasinha, Thushara, Aruna De Silva, Anwardeen, Rifaz, Chandana, Hilmi, Rukmal, Gadward Anthony Arendtsz (Manager).

India XI - Pervaiz Khan (Capt.), Dinesh, Abdul Hamid, Francis D'Costa, Arif Ahmed, Mansoor Ahmed, Khalid, Hassan Surve, Imtiaz, Kazi, Sharif, Forqaan Dawood, Naser Khan, Aqeel, Sayed Ali (Manager)

Pakistan XI - Zulfiqar Ali Shah (Capt.), Gyasuddin (V.Capt), Mohd Asim, Atta-ur-rehman, Kaleem, Dilbar, Asif, Shahid Rizwan, Saleem Butt, Noor-ul-ain, Usman Malid Mani, Sabir, Gul Khan (Manager).

The final match: Pakistan claimed the Al-Rawabi Nations Cup by virtue of cricket's equivalent of a technical knockout at the Petrotec-Fosroc ground.

Chasing a victory target of 186 off 40 overs, Pakistan were all out for 185 in 37.1 overs, much to the delight of Sri Lankans who celebrated the occasion by collecting the stumps to keep as souvenirs even as their supporters stomed the ground in joy.

However, their celebrations were short-lived as, a few minutes later, the tournament's technical committee awarded the match to Pakistan because they had taken just 37.1 overs to make those runs, while the Lankans had taken 10 balls more.

The match produced thrills worthy of a final with not many inclined to comment on its outcome.

However, when Pakistan were 81 for six at one stage, many of their backers had already resigned to the teams's seemingly imminent fate.

But the Pakistanis staged a gallant recovery through Kaleem and Shahid Rizwan who batted sensibly to deny the Sri Lankans.

The due put on 95 runs in even time, playing strokes all around the wicket despite some enterprising fielding by the Lankans, who risked serious injury by diving at anything that came their way regardless of the rock hard, grassless ground.

Kaleem, who was later named man of the match as well as the best batsman of the tournament, top-scored with 73 before losing his wicket with the score on 176.

With just 10 runs required for victory, and the light fading fast, the Pakistanis were faced with a desperate situation.

The Lankans did their best to take advantage of the light by resorting to delaying tactics.

At one point of time almost five minutes were lost as the Lankans argued with the umpire over a decision, adding to the Pakistani's frustration.

The Pakistanis took the score to 178 before they lost their eighth wicket, and three runs later, they were precariously placed at 181 for 9, needing five more runs.

At this point the light had deteriorated further, but the batsmen somehow managed to level the score before the last man was out, triggerring off celebrations in the Lankan camp, which later turned to grief.

Pakistan also swept all individual prizes. In addition to the man of the match and best batsman prizes won by Kaleem, Ghyasuddin picked up the best bowler's award.

Mr.Alfred Serrao of Al-Rawabi gave away the prizes in the presence of QCA Vice President (Public Relations) Mr.Ronald Mendonca.

An official Qatar team will be selected based on the performance of the players in the Nations Cup to represent Qatar in a Gulf Tournament conducted by the Asian Wing of International Cricket Conference, which will take place in Dubai during the Eid Holidays during January 2000."