The Challangers won the toss and had no hesitation in wanting to bat first on a ground where they racked up huge runs in their previous outing.,

We are pretty much at the point when Rehan Mansoor should already have a wicket at least recorded in the scorebook in his first over before it’s even bowled, because this was once again the case. The wicket itself was a huge one, as Rehan proved too good for the extremely dangerous Safwan Manzoor on the second ball of the match. The early setback to the Challangers meant that they couldn’t get off to the flier they would have planned for, as another two wickets fell in the powerplay with the score at 3-25 (Ehtisham and Salman Jajja becoming victims to Rehan and Naveed).

Captain Tahir was in early following his good batting form from the previous game, but his second ace card Muha Ud Deen was unable to fire today with the bat as he also fell early for 11 runs. With the Royals firmly on top at 5-45 (Usman Khwaja also not lasting long), the Challangers needed to hang in the contest. A hero was the need of the hour, and the hero arrived in the form of Shahid Cheema, who’s 35 ball 64 was one of the best counter attacking innings in this years tournament (4 fours and 5 sixes at 182 strike rate!). The Challangers with the help of their captain’s anchoring innings of 38 off 40 eventually reached a decent total of 156-8 at the end of their 20 overs, they would take that being 5-45 in 7.4 overs!

The Royals who needed close to 8 runs per over to chase this total were soon in trouble themselves with the bat, as two early wickets with the score at 12 runs was the perfect start that the challengers would have liked defending 156 runs. Fawad Bajwa was once again required to steer the Royals away from a possible incoming collapse. The classy left hander has shown glimpses of his quality throughout the tournament, and today was looking to shift through the gears having added a timely 35 runs of 29 balls. Fawad and Umair Saleem added a 70 run partnership and with the score at 80-2 in 10 overs, the Royals were in cruise control to chase this total.

Fawad’s wicket opened a slight door for the Challangers to claw themselves back into the match, as Umair Saleem also departed shortly after with the score now at 91-4 in 12 overs. Rizwan Baloch initially struggled to gain momentum at the crease and had to retire for a brief period. With the required run rate increasing, the Royals couldn’t leave this chase to chance and therefore sent in their own tank in the form of Atta ul Farid Babar to ensure that this match doesn’t go out of reach through a casual approach. Babar understood his assignment and in his cold and brutal manner added 29 off 18 balls (2 fours and 3 sixes) to truly end the Challenge of the Challangers for this fixture. Rizwan did come back following the wicket of Farukh, but the damage done by Babar was enough to ensure an important 2 points for the victorious royals!

Babar’s late innings brutality was still fresh in the minds of the participants for him to be overlooked as the man of the match, otherwise Shahid Cheema was pretty much nailed on for this award had his side been the winners today. 2 vital points for the Royals who will be going into the Jalsa break with a sense of satisfaction.

Scorecard summary is as follows;

Man of the match;