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Rain forces Panthers to share spoils with Hawks
by Asif Sohail
LAHORE. 25 April 2005: Lady luck deserted Peshawar Panthers as heavy rain forced them to share a measly one point each with Hyderabad Hawks in their ABN AMRO Twenty-20 Cup match at the Gaddafi Stadium here on Monday. Sadly for the Pathers they looked in fine shape to gather the full 2 points.
Chasing an easy target of 128 the Panthers were happily placed at 48 without loss in 4.5 overs when the drizzle started to dampen the evenings fun and send the fans home then finally it turned into a thunderstorm that stopped the match.
The umpires waited for the rain to stop for quite some time but it continued and forced them to abandon the match. According to the tournament playing conditions a minimum of five overs play was imperative to reach a result. Had Peshawar played another ball in the drizzle they could have easily won the match on the basis of the D/L method. Since the Panthers had batted for only 4.5 overs they had to share one point each with the Hawks.
When the match was abandoned Fawad Khan was batting on 29 while Yasir Hameed was on 16.
Earlier, some fine pace bowling by Umar Gul, returning from a back injury, restricted the Hawks to 127 in 19.4 overs. Abid Ali and Shoaib Laghari were the top scorers with 18 runs each. Umar finished with 4 for 21. Mohammad Aslam and Sajid Shah claimed two wickets apiece for 13 and 23 runs respectively.
(Article: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only.
Copyright © 2005 Asif Sohail)
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