A comprehensive win over Southern Express and Northern Knights' win over
Mumbai Indians lifted Lahore Lions into the main draw of the Champions
League T20. Lions had bettered their chances of qualifying after the big
win in the first game of the day but their progress also depended on
the result of the game between Knights and Mumbai and the New Zealand
team's six-wicket win smoothed the road for Lions.
At the toss, Express captain Jehan Mubarak had said that he had chosen
to bowl because he preferred chasing a target with the qualification at
stake, and had aimed to restrict Lions to a total in the range of
130-140. Those goals, however, came undone in the last five overs of the
Lions innings against an attacking innings from Mohammad Hafeez, who blasted 67 off 40 balls.
Lions went into their last five overs on 89 for 3 before Hafeez changed
gears. He blasted Seekkuge Prasanna for a four and three successive
sixes off the first four balls of the 16th over, which went for 25. The
Lions captain followed that up with a few more big hits and brought up
the 150 for the side with a six and four off Charith Jayampathi in the
19th over. By the time the innings ended at 164 for 6, 75 had come off
the last five overs.
Express needed one of their top-order batsmen to replicate the kind of
innings Hafeez had played but their challenge began withering away soon,
as Aizaz Cheema
reduced them to 36 for 3. An already weakened innings stumbled along to
an early finish as Express lost four wickets for six runs, including
Mubarak who had struck a brisk 35.
Cheema, who missed out on a hat-trick for the third successive match in
the tournament, finished with 3 for 15 and was well supported by Wahab
Riaz and Adnan Rasool as Express folded for 109 in 18 overs.
Lions dominated thoroughly with the ball but they lacked fluency in the
first half of their batting innings. Until the 15th over, the Express
bowlers had done a good job of restraining the batsmen, specially after
Farveez Maharoof's strikes in successive overs.
Lions' opening pair of Umar Siddiq, promoted up the order in place of
Nasir Jamshed, and Ahmed Shehzad had made a confident start before
Maharoof landed the first breakthrough, enticing a dab from Siddiq that
was caught by wicketkeeper Kusal Perera. Maharoof's next over turned out
to be even better with the wickets of Shehzad and Jamshed, both batsmen
out to poor shots. The next seven overs saw Lions score just 37 runs as
Hafeez and Saad Nasim focused on rebuilding the innings and set up a
flourish at the end.
