Sardar shines in Elite CC victory over Starlets

SHARJAH: Sardar Bahzad Naquib excelled with the ball and the bat in Elite Cricket Club’s three wicket win over DCC Starlets in the 45th Bukhatir Premier League 2019 match played at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.

Starlets won the toss and elected to bat. Kai Smith (16) and Ronak Panoly (17) gave them a decent 26 run start for the opening wicket. Shahrukh Ahmed (20) and Mohammad Ali Mirza (10) also made minor contributions but somehow the Starlets batsmen were struggling against some tidy bowling from Sardar (3-18), Zaheer Maqsood (3-41) and Waseem Bari (2-45).

Siddhanth Agarwal (35) and Qais Farooq (36) managed a 50 run partnership before Siddhanth was trapped LBW by Rizwan Sadiq. DCC Starlets were not yet out of the woods but in came Yuvraj Jaisingh and things started looking brighter for Starlets.

He and Farooq added 44 runs for the sixth wicket, but once Farooq departed Yuvraj started to run out of partners and at this stage he threw his bat around for some quick runs (53 from 57 balls with six fours) to take Starlets to 221.

Elite bided their time in geting those runs. Rashid Ali top scored for them with 73 which came from 103 balls and was laced with five fours and a six. But it was Naquib’s unbeaten 43 which won him the man of the match award while Salman Randhawa enthralled the crowd with a cameo 28 from 20 balls and it came from three sixes.

Brief scores: Elite CC beat DCC Starlets by 3 wickets DCC Starlets 221 all out in 47 overs (Yuvraj Jaisingh 53, Qais Farooq 36, Siddhanth Agarwal 35, Shahrukh Ahmed 20; Sardar Bahzad Naquib 3−18, Zaheer Maqsood 3−41, Waseem Bari 2−45) Elite CC 226 for 7 in 48.5 overs (Rashid Ali 73, Sardar Bahzad Naquib 43 n.o., Salman Randhawa 28, Yassir Kaleem 24, Waseem Bari 21; Jash Giyanani 2−27).