In the fifth match of Pakistan Cricket Board’s world-cup preparatory National Triangular T20 tournament which is going on at National Stadium, Karachi, and PCB Blasters, once again won the toss and elected to bat first.
Opener Javeria Khan once again scored a terrific knock of 67 runs off 63 balls with ten boundaries, while her partner, again, and got run out on a duck. Except for Jaweria Rauf’s knock of 27 runs, the other batters barely contributed with scores of 12 and 6 by Aliya Riyaz and Natalia Pervaiz respectively and both Sidra Nawaz and Sadaf Shamas scoring one run each. PCB Blasters succumbed at 124 runs in 20 overs, giving away 5 wickets.
Chasing a non-challenging target of 125 runs, PCB Challengers’ opener Ayesha Zafar got out on a golden duck. Bismah Maroof-led Challengers then got off to a flying start with Muneeba Ali, yet again, shining for her side, scoring 56 runs off an equal number of balls. She had a brilliant partnership with Pakistani skipper Maroof, who, leading from the front, scored 62 runs off 47 balls.
It was an easy chase for the Challengers who reached the target of 125 runs with 2 overs and 5 balls remaining. They scored 125 runs in 17.1 overs, losing 2 wickets at the run rate of 7.28.
Challengers’ batter Muneeba Ali has been their most consistent performer in this tournament with scores of 50, 108 and 56 runs respectively, in the three games her team has played.
The last match takes between PCB Challengers and PCB Dynamites will take place on 14th January and it would be interesting to see if Muneeba Ali continues with her terrific forms and leads her team to a win or Nahida Khan-led Dynamites score a victory.