Nazir fireworks ensure Lahore win

A brutal 38-ball 83 from Imran Nazir took Lahore Badshahs to the most emphatic of victories over Mumbai Champs in Ahmedabad. Mumbai only managed 140 for 5, a target which Lahore knocked off in just 13.2 overs.

Nazir began the chase with a delicious upper-cut over backward point in the first over, but it was in the second that he went berserk, off Michael Kasprowicz. Two fuller deliveries were scorched down the ground, while he flicked the third through square-leg.

Kasprowicz shortened his length for the rest of the over but couldn't wriggle out of the punishment. Two pull shots sent the ball towards a packed crowd in the stands at deep midwicket and a massive straight hit cannoned into the sightscreen.

Johan van der Wath wasn't spared, either, as Imran Farhat also took the attack. And although Farhat soon fell, Nazir charged along merrily regardless. With Inzamam-ul-Haq in a similar mood, the game was done and dusted in the 14th over. Nazir finished on a breathless 83 from just 38 balls.

The chase was in complete contrast to the way Mumbai Champs went about their business earlier in the evening. Mumbai, winless in the tournament, started off cautiously after being put into bat, before Dhiraj Jadhav and Taufeeq Umar boosted momentum with four boundaries in the sixth over off Mohammad Sami.

After Umar flayed one through covers, Jadhav repeated the dose before flicking two through square leg. At the end of seven overs the score read a respectable 48 but Saqlain Mushtaq and Shahid Nazir applied the squeeze admirably.

The next four overs only went for 23 runs. Shahid hit a fuller length and mixed his pace and Saqlain was up to his usual tricks. The doosras, the offbreaks, the quicker ones and even his legspin; you name it, it was there. Lahore's performance was clinical and destructive; Mumbai, though, couldn't escape yet another humiliation.

The ICL action shifts to Gurgaon for the next round of league matches.