Quaid Trophy quarter finals begin today

The quarterfinals of the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy National Cricket Championship start from Tuesday with National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) taking on Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) in arguably the pick of four ties.

The NBP-KRL four-day clash at National Stadium is likely to be a close contest between these evenly matched teams despite the absence of NBP skipper Mushtaq Ahmed.

The former Test leg-spinner has still not recovered from a stomach virus which forced him to miss the crushing innings victory over Habib Bank in the pre-quarterfinal tie last week.

KRL are strengthened by availability of all-rounder Yasir Arafat and batsman Saeed bin Nasir. Both young players were away on national duty with Pakistan 'A' squad in the UAE.

NBP will be pinning their hopes on the new ball partnership of Shabbir Ahmed and left-armer Zahid Saeed who proved handful for the demoralised Habibians.

Performance of KRL's Pakistan batsman Misbah-ul-Haq could be the decisive factor of this game. His unbeaten 167 against Allied Bank in the last 16 round match was his fourth three-figure knock in five matches.

Wapda, meanwhile, will be glad to welcome Pakistan 'A' all-rounder Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan in their line-up for the meeting with the formidable PIA side at Pindi Stadium. Wapda made it to this stage with a narrow two-wicket win over Pakistan Customs.

PIA, led by ex-Pakistan captain Moin Khan, will be itching to notch up a sixth straight innings victory. Recent Pakistan 'A' tourists Shoaib Malik, Umar Gul and Najaf Shah beef up an already very strong outfit.

Pakistan 'A' vice-captain Junaid Zia rejoins Rawalpindi for their match against Sargodha in Peshawar. Whatever the result here, the presence of an association team in the semifinals is guaranteed.

The remaining quarterfinal encounter, here at UBL Sports Complex, could spring up a surprise as Faisalabad face Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL). A win for the former cannot be ruled out.

One fascinating feature of these line-ups is that all qualifiers are either from Group-I or Group-IV. NBP, Wapda, Faisalabad and Sargodha were placed in Group-I of preliminary round while PIA, KRL, ZTBL and Rawalpindi were in Group-IV.

*National Bank of Pakistan v Khan Research Laboratories at National Stadium, Karachi (Umpires: Islam Khan and Athar Zaidi. Match referee: Ilyas Khan)

*PIA v Wapda at Pindi Cricket Stadium, Rawalpindi (Umpires: Siddique Khan and Rasheed Bhatti. Match referee: Abdul Sami Khan)

*Faisalabad v Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited at UBL Sports Complex, Karachi (Umpires: Afzaal Ahmed and Riazuddin. Match referee: Fahimuddin Alvi)

*Rawalpindi v Sargodha at Arbab Niaz Stadium, Peshawar (Umpires: Iftikhar Malik and Iqbal Butt. Match referee: Farrukh Zaman)