ICC Under-17 Asia Cup: 5th day Summary

There were 3 matches on the cards for July 19, 2000 all to be played at different grounds in Karachi. Among the participating teams Sri Lanka was the only one that has won all their matches so far. The others have had mixed results. Incidently all the three matches today were high scoring games, the total going beyond the 200 mark for atleast innings each. A player from Bangladesh scored the first century of the tournament. Todyay showed a stark difference from the matches played earlier. Possibly, the teams have become acclimatized to the local grounds and weather conditions.

The match between Bahrain and Kuwait recorded the highest one innings total for the tournament. Kuwait batting first ended up with a gigantic total of 294 for 8, making things difficult for their opponents. This was an innings in which every batsman contributed his share of runs. Taimour Ashraf 66 not out in 45 balls, Hasan Arif 63 in 40 balls and Zeshan Sabri 36 in 43 balls were prominent among them. The number of fours and sixes that they hit showed the command that they exercised on Bahrain's bowling. The victory target of 295 for Bahrain was rather far two high for them.

The victory target faced by the Bahrain team being too high and possibly scary, their approach to the game was rather too rash. It caused the fall of wickets at regular intervals. In desperation to reach the target the team was out for 140 runs in 27 overs. The batsmen to reach double figures were, Haroon Naseer (35) Rizwan Abdul Ghani (24) Asif Siddiqui (15) Roshan Cherian (16) and Ali Iftikhar (19 not out). With a tremendous haul of 5 for 45 Dilesh Thurairatnam was responsible for Bahrain's demolition. Kuwait won by 154 runs.

The match between Sri Lanka and Malaysia had the second highest innings of 289 for 8 registered by Sri Lanka. Though they lost the first 2 wickets for only 48 runs on the board, Ishan Mutalip played an aggressive innings of 61 in 70 balls with 5 hits to the boundary. Another enterprising innings that further mounted Sri Lanka's score came from Jehan Jayasuriya who scored a scintillating 69 in 63 balls with 6 exciting fours and a towering six. The third batsman to join in the run spree was Jeevan Mendis who contributed a valiant 65 in 59 balls. A target of 290 was a massive one for Malaysia to achieve.

As anticipated Malaysia could not face Sri Lanka's onslaught and crumbled for a petty total of 70 runs in 21 overs. Mohammad Maroof (18), Mohammad Yasairi (11) and Mr. EXTRAS (18) were the major contributors to the score. Sri Lanka defeated Malaysia by a humiliating margin of 219 runs.

In the third match between Bangladesh and Nepal, Bangladesh also crossed the 200 mark, ending up with a total of 225 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. The innings was built up mainly with the efforts of Mohammad Ashraful who scored a supberb 102 in 131 balls. His masterly innings contained 7 fours and 2 fantastic sixes. The others who contributed to the total were. Shafiul Islam (27) Nasir ud Din (23) and Shariful Islam (27 not out)

In reply, Nepal's young batsmen found the Bangladesh bowling rather too difficult to handle and were all out for 82 runs. Kaniska Chaugai (13), Amit Shrestha (12), Basanta Regmi (13) were the batsmen to reach double figures and Bangladesh defeated Nepal by 143 runs.

In the overall analysis one may conclude that all the three matches played today were one-sided affairs. Although many teams stage a surprise come-back after losing in the preliminary rounds, still the results will help cricket lovers in judging the comparative strength of the teams.