Pakistan: Hard-hitting Afridi misses century in KESC's win (7 Jan 1998)

07 January 1998

Hard-hitting Afridi misses century in KESC's win

By Our Sports Reporter

KARACHI, Jan 6: Shahid Afridi, the hard-hitting Test cricketer, batted briskly but was unlucky to miss his century by six runs as KESC recorded a convincing 56-run triumph over Dadabhoy Cement in the 12th Karachi Gymkhana Ramazan Cricket Festival here on Tuesday afternoon at the KG ground.

One down Shahid Afridi entertained a large number of spectators with his lusty hitting all over the ground before he misjudged a delivery from right arm leg-spinner Fareed Hasan to be clean bowled for a delightful 94 from 39 balls. Afridi was in a ruthless mood, hammering seven mighty sixes and slammed five majestc boundaries.

Shahid Afridi, declared Man of the Match, made the Dadbhoy Cement attack look ordinary after the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation suffered an initial setback losing opener Nadeem Naeem for 10 with the total 22. Afridi , who started in whirlwind fashion, was the min architect of the KESC innings which finally ended at 218 all out in 24.2 overs. The other main scorers included skipper Mansoor Khan 28 who hit two fours and equal number of sixes in his 28 and tail-ender Ejaz Farooqi contributed 25 which contained two boundaries

Right rm leg-pinner Fareed Hasan removed three batsmen for 40 runs and two wickets each were taken by off-spinner Mukhtar Ahmed, leg-spinners Mohtashim Rasheed and Adnan Malik for 32, 39 and 27 runs respectively. Playing their second Group D match after a victory against A.O Clinic, Dadabhoy Cement failed to cope with the KESC attack and were dismissed in 24.5 overs.

The Dadabhoy Cement lost their top five batsmen for 10I. However, Afsar Nawaz 37, Freed Hasan 26 and Iqbal Shaikh 24, batted well in a difficult situation.

Leg-spinner Asif Ghori bowled exceedingly well to get three wickets for 29 and Jaffar Qureshi, also a left arm leg-spinner, secured two for seven. However, Shahid Afridi, the right arm leg-spinner, proved costly as he got only wicket for 35 runs in his five overs.

The summarised scores were:

KESC: 218 all out 218 in 24.2 overs( Shahid Afridi 94, Mansoor Khan 28, Ejaz Farooqi 25- Fareed Hasan 3 for 40, Mukhtar Ahmed 2for 32, Mohtashim Rasheed 2 for 39, Adnan Malik 2 for 27).

Dadabhoy Cement: 162 all out in 24.5 overs ( Afsar Nawaz 37, Fareed Hasan 26, Iqbal Shaikh 24, Nadeem 20- Asif Ghori 3 for 29, Jafar Qureshi 2 for 7.

WEDNESDAY'S FIXTURE: NDFC vs Ideal Group (Group C) at 1.00 p.m.

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