Merciful Conquerors v Victorious Royals

The afternoon game of the Sunday blast between the Conquerors and the Royals followed the after the 490 runs fest earlier on. The Conquerors in pursuit of saving their season desperately needed a win against a so far impressive Royal’s side lead wonderfully by Babar in his debut season in the leadership role. Faizan Warraich won the toss and decided to set a score to defend.

Missing their frontline hitman, the Conquerors had to make shift with the experienced wicket keeper batsman Qaiser Mahmood and AZ sports supremo Zeeshan Anjum as their opening pair. A steady start by the two slowly built a foundation amidst some disciplined bowling by the Royals, who have been very impressive with Mohsaf’s new ball exploits of late. Ticking the first important box, the Conquerors did not allow Mohsaf to break through within the powerplay this time and accumulated a good 54 run partnership for the first wicket. Mudassar Dogar sensing the need to get a move on and add some impetus within the innings pushed hard with an impressive knock of 69 off 38 balls (six fours and 5 sixes) whilst Qaiser continued to anchor one end.

Losing only their second wicket in the final over of the innings, the Conquerors finished with a total of 168. Given the fact that the previous encounter on the same track saw a score of 245 runs to be too low, surely the Conquerors would be kicking themselves to have not batted to their full potential with so many wickets and power hitters still in the dug out? It was yet to be seen if Qaiser’s stay of 67* off 62 balls playing the first ball of the innings was going to be useful or backfire massively with the Royals fancying this middling total on a good batting deck…

Faizan had no choice but to rally his troops to deliver their best in the field. The opening bowlers responded accordingly as the Royals very soon found themselves in a real spot of bother having lost 3 wickets for 7 runs on the board! The experience of Anjum Zeeshan and the out of the syllabus move of opening the bowling with Rana Waleed proved to be a masterstroke as the Conquerors could sense a massive opening with Abid Ahmed trapped for LBW without having troubled the scorers!

Imran Noori and Waqas Ahmed (31 runs off 36 balls) tried to rescue the innings and chase with another partnership and stretching the innings for their side. However, with the mounting pressure of run rate climb, the wickets eventually tumbled one after the other as Taha (3-15 with an economy of 3.75), Usman Tahir and Faizan himself delivered excellent spells with economies below 6 runs per over! Eventually a comfortable victory of 55 runs for the Conquerors.

Getting 2 Massive points on the board with 55 extra runs, the Conquerors have come out of this contest feeling much more relieved than they would have liked against a strong outfit. The Royals have seemed to lost their way having looked so good initially and now with two back to back defeats. They also know fall in danger of not qualifying with 7 points on the board and one game remaining. By the end of the day, things can get worse for them if other results do not go their way!