A prolific victory over Bahrain Under-17s Pakistan Under-17s cruises into semi final

The match played at Hyderabad, a commercial cum industrial centre of the province of Sindh was a one sided affair. Pakistan having won all its matches was rather too strong for Bahrain who had lost all with zero points on the table.

Having won the toss and electing to bat, Bahrain was all out for 87 in 34.3 overs. They lost the first wicket at 7 and then kept losing them at regular intervals. Opener Haroon Naseer (15) Roshan Cherian Alex (10) Anand Mahendra (11) and Asif Siddique 12 not out were the batsmen who reached double figure. Mr. EXTRAS (24) was the highest contributor of runs.

There were four ducks as against only 3 hits to the boundary. The batsmen were not able to face Munir Ansari who wrecked the team clinching 4 wickets for 9 runs. Altaf Hussain and Zaheer Maqsood claimed 2 wickets each.

Pakistan innings

The inevitable happened when Pakistan defeated Bahrain by 9 wickets in 13.5 overs only. Facing an easy target of 88 runs against the bowling as soft as cream and butter, Pakistan had no problem in brushing aside the babes from Bahrain.

Suleman Butt and Khalid Latif opened the innings. While Suleman Butt (5) was out at the score of 14; Khalid Latif and Khurram Ibrahim joined hands in spanking the bowlers. In his 48 not out scored in 39 balls, Khalid smashed 9 fours, the highest number of boundaries hit by a batsman in a match in this tournament. Khurram provided his partner admirable support by remaining not out with 21 scored in 31 balls, with 2 fours. They ended the innings at 89 for 1.

With a prolific victory over Bahrain by 9 wickets, Pakistan emerges as the leader of Group "A" and cruises into the semi finals. With this defeat Bahrain ends up without a point in this tournament.