University of Central Punjab (UCP) from Lahore continued their impressive run in the world finals of the Red Bull Campus Cricket 2016 edition with a five-wicket win over India’s Marathwada Mitra Mandal College of Commerce in a round match played at Colombo’s Sinhalese Sports Club Ground.
UCP started their campaign in the tournament with a comfortable win over the campus team from UAE in their opening match on Monday and once again succeeded in chasing down a score like they did in the previous game.
Marathwada Mitra Mandal College of Commerce batsmen posted a total of 176 for the loss of eight wickets in their allotted 20 overs. Rushabh Rathod was the top-scorer for his team with an innings of 61 off 40 balls. Shubham Nagawade contributed a breezy 35 off 26 balls.
Aftab Azwer and Usman Khalid were the two bowlers who maintained a stranglehold on the opposition, both collected two wickets apiece. UCP chased down the score in the 18th over for the loss of five wickets. Taimor Sultan who opened the innings for his team was the hero as he bashed a 53 ball 91 laced with six sixes and eight fours.
Taimor’s onslaught was the difference between the two teams as the rest of the UCP batsmen were content at giving him the strike, Junaid Ali (20) and Mohammad Mohsin (21) made useful alliances with Taimor which resulted in a comfortable win for UCP with 14 balls of their innings left unused. None of the Marathwada Mitra Mandal College of Commerce bowlers made an impression on Taimor who played an innings of real quality and substance to ensure a fantastic win for his team. In the end Pakistan beat India by 5 wickets with 14 balls remaining. University of Central Punjab have qualified for the semi finals.
The competition this year will see the trial of a new Energiser Over, where the runs for one over per side, tactically nominated by the batting team at any point after the Powerplay overs, will count double. Any wickets taken during that over will cost the batting side 5 penalty runs.
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