Gladiators began the tournament with a bang, well almost. What seemed like a convincing victory at the end had its own deciding moments. And on most of those occasions, they came on top.
Imran won the toss (once again) and elected to bat. Although Yasir kept the scoreboard ticking at one end, Mudit fell cheaply and Afzal, sent 1-down, took far too many balls to score his runs. Eventually, he perished trying to up the ante. The bowling wasn't special, but the wicket was wet and was slow and keeping both low. YasirB got out after making a good 30+ but at a time when he was required to just stay at the wicket. Sameer got out immediately after and the score was 85/4 in ~ 14 overs. With just Asghar as the only specialist batsman and other versatile all-rounders left, there was a chance of collapsing at a score of 120ish - very much Gladiator-like. It almost did as the next 3 batsmen in, Imran, Zeeshan, and Kashan - all got out cheaply. The score was 107/7. And MU's main bowler - Anu was bowling quite intelligently.
Then Yasir joined Asghar at the crease. This was the first turning point in the match. Yasir started blasting away the MU bowlers with some clean hits. Asghar, on the other end was batting beautifully, cautiously playing for the off low deliveries but making sure the loose ones are fetched from the woods. From 129/7 in 22 overs, the last 3 overs fetched 46 runs. Yasir and Mohsin together contributed 36 runs of just 14 deliveries. Asghar on the other hand was playing a perfect knock and blasted 44 in just 32 deliveries before getting out in the penultimate over. Anu's last 2 overs went for over 30 runs.
Defending 175 can be tricky. It was never an easy target to chase, but a lot depended on the descipline of our bowlers. Zeeshan and Mansoor opened the bowling. They bowled with pace and MU openers had trouble connecting their deliveries. Mohsin and Yasir as first and second change maintained the pressure. Although wickets weren't falling quickly enough, the asking rate was climbing and MU's batsmen were looking to up the scoring rate. At halfway mark, they were ~ 68/2. Imran and Mudit came into the attack, with choking the runs as their main target. Mudit took 2 wickets, thanks to fine catches YasirM and Afzal in his first 2 deliveries for the season. But after that, the batsmen regrouped. The next 4-5 overs saw a mini-revival with batsmen scoring at almost 8 an over. Another turning point?
Imran made the right move by bring back Zeeshan into the attack. He bowled with great heart and his second miserly spell with 2 good wickets completely sealed any hopes of a comeback by MU.
In the end, it was a good lower order batting revival and desciplined bowling that brought Gladiators their first victory of the season. The batting revival was led from the front by Asghar which saw Gladiators going from a 107/7 to 175/10.
My choice:
Batsman of the match: Asghar 44(32) 3x4 3x6
Bowler of the match : Zeeshan 5-0-2-22
Man of the match: Asghar
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