Akram leads PIA today to prove his fitness (10 Jan 1998)

10 January 1998

Akram leads PIA today to prove his fitness

By Our Sports Reporter

KARACHI, Jan 9: The final round of the Patron's Trophy Grade One championship begins at four different centres of the country from Saturday.

The real attraction will be the appearance of Wasim Akram for PIA against Allied Bank at the National Stadium.

Akram will be out there in an effort to soften the hearts of the cricket administrators and selectors by proving his fitness to earn selection for the African safari for which he has not been considered so far. It will not be the performance which will be the basis of his selection, but physical condition as Akram is nursing a muscular pain little under the neck. Need not to mention the chronic shoulder injury which sidelined him for eight months last year.

But Akram's task doesn't end here. The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will be hoping that Akram leads them from the front and help them clinch a much-needed victory over Allied Bank which can avert the relegation which is staring the national carriers right in their faces. PIA are currently placed at the bottom of the table with four points. With them are WAPDA who play Customs at Lahore. Customs have 10 points. The scenario in the final round is that if PIA beat Allied Bank, who are already through to the final, they escape relegation as they would have 14 points.

On the other hand, the loser of WAPDA-Customs match will go out from the first-class tournament next year and if WAPDA win, they will have 14 points against Customs' 10 or if Customs win they will add another 10 points to their 10 while WAPDA will remain at 4.

However, if both PIA and WAPDA secure two first innings lead points, they will end up with six points each. But PIA will be relegated as they have lost a match to Customs while WAPDA have not been beaten in any of their six previous matches.

While there will be a fight for survival at Karachi and Lahore, another interesting match between National Bank and KRL is also on the cards. The winner qualifies for the five-day final against Allied Bank. Reverting to PIA-Allied Bank match, the national carriers will be odds-on favourites to win their tie as they would have the services of Wasim Akram, Moin Khan and Asif Mujtaba. On the contrary, Allied Bank will miss Aamir Sohail, Manzoor Akhtar and Aqib Javed who are in Dhaka with the Pakistan team.

Source:: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)