Hayat leads Hong Kong to big win
Babar Hayat stuck 186 runs across both innings, including a century in the first, to lead Hong Kong to a vast win against UAE
ESPNcricinfo staff
14-Nov-2015
Hong Kong 378 (Hayat 113, Afzal 104, Iqbal 3-38) and 184 (Hayat 73, Raza 5-61, Aziz 4-90) beat UAE 181 (Patil 75, Rath 4-34) and 105 (Sreekumar 61, Amjad 4-10, Ahmed 4-40) by 276 runs
Scorecard
Scorecard
Slow left-arm spinner Nadeem Ahmed and pacer Haseeb Amjad shared eight wickets between them to shoot UAE out for 105, securing Hong Kong's vast win, their first in the Intercontinental Cup.
Resuming from an overnight, 5 for 0, UAE were rocked by regular wickets, with nine of their batsmen bagging single-digit scores. Debutant Laxman Sreekumar (61) and Qais Farooq (26) added 65 together to offer the lone source of resistance before Amjad killed off UAE by dismissing Sreekumar with a bouncer.
The win, though, was set up by Babar Hayat, who struck 186 across both innings, including 113 in the first dig. After choosing to bat, Hong Kong had a solid base with opener Kinchit Shah and Hayat putting on a 106-run stand but that was soon squandered as the middle order crumbled. However, Hayat combined well with captain Tanwir Afzal, who made a century of his own, to lift their side to 378.
"It's a great day for Hong Kong, beating the UAE in a first class game - it is a special day for Hong Kong and for the whole team. It's a really special day for us," Hayat said. "I am really happy with my batting performance. I used to bat No. 5 or 6, but I talked to Simon Cook and he said you are going to move up. I'm really happy batting at this position and am really looking forward to the next few games here on the same pitch, and hopefully get some more runs."
Afzal carried the momentum into his bowling and quickly reduced UAE to 23 for 3. Sandeep Patil and Usman Mushtaq then got together and assembled a 77-run partnership to mount a recovery but a lower-order collapse meant that UAE folded for 181.
They did not fare any better in their second innings, chasing 382, after Hayat's 73 guided Hong Kong to 184, despite slow left-arm spinner Ahmed Raza's five-wicket haul.
"The game has pretty much gone to script as far as we are concerned," Simon Cook, the Hong Kong coach, said. "This was the icing on the cake, to do it so convincingly in the first session. We had discussed about how important the first hour was today, and that would really set up the day, and it proved so, with the UAE losing five wickets for one run in the space of about 15 balls. That really set us up."