Bahrain Under-17s crumbled with scare of a big target

Kuwait innings

The match was played at National Stadium Karachi, one of the best cricket venues in the world. Kuwait won the toss and elected to bat. Apparently weighing too heavy against an in-experienced Bahrain, Kuwait played an innings in which every batsman contributed his share of runs.

In 39 overs Kuwait had reached 236 for the loss of 5 wickets. The rate of scoring that they maintained indicated that they were really out for an adventure. Opener Zeeshan Sabri smashed 6 fours in his 36 runs scored in 43 balls. Similarly Ajesh Mathew had 5 fours in his score of 51. Hasan Arif's 63 in 40 balls with 5 fours and a grand six was a classical exhibition of hurricane hitting.

Except for Taimur Ashraf who remained not out with a marvelous innings of 66 in 45 balls with 4 fours and a six, the batsmen who followed were out cheaply. Kuwait ended its innings with a gigantic total of 294 for 8, the highest score of the tournament so far. The wickets having been evenly shared no bowler emerged with distinction.

Bahrain innings

Facing a gigantic target of 295 Bahrain was all out for 140 runs in 27 overs. Opening with Haroon Naseer (35) and Rizwan Abdul Ghani (24) Bahrain took a reasonably good start losing the 1st wicket at 39 and the 2nd at 76. The subsequent wickets fell after short intervals. The 16 fours and a mighty six hit by the batsmen will indicate that they were pretty rash in their approach. The huge target in front of them prompted them to do so. They wanted to go down fighting.

The other batsmen to reach double figures were Asif Siddiqui (15) Roshan Cherian (16) and Ali Iftikhar (19 not out). With a tremendous haul of 5 wickets for 45 runs in 8 overs, Dilesh Thurairatnam was responsible for making the short work of Bahrain, who lost by 154 runs.