Skipper Harawal backed his side to defend once again by winning the toss and electing to bat first.

Thinking out of the box, Muzamil Dogar (captain of the Defenders) chose to begin his attack with right arm off-spinner Haseeb Mubashir instead of a pacer. His selection proved fruitful as Haseeb picked up 2 early wickets for his side in the first over with the score at 2-2, not the ideal start for the Stars!

The big pair of Harawal and Khurram were early in at the crease and a repair job was the need of the hour. With maturity and class, the two senior UK first team batters added a mammoth partnership of 131 runs in 93 balls, whilst digging the Stars out of a massive hole with the score now at 133-3 in 15 overs. Harawal (67 off 45) and Khurram (52 off 44) having done a fantastic job both were dismissed in succession (Haseeb finishing his spell with figures of 3-26), with the job now a lot more easier for the lower order to add to the score. A reasonable contribution by Tehseen (10 off 7) continued the momentum for his side, however Talha Qamar these days can’t seem to stop adding high impact cameos of value. His 25 runs off 14 balls (178 strike rate) was fundamental in finishing the innings off well for his side and pushing the score to 185-7 by the end of the first innings.

The Defenders needed to score at 9.5 runs from the get go, a rate fairly achievable at Cheam CC’s usually true track. They were not helped by the early wickets of Khalique, Mansoor and Rana Faheem within the powerplay and the score at 29-3 at 6 overs. Nauman Rafique did the main damage with his opening spell of 2-11 in his 4 overs at an economy of 2.75 and the required run rate now sky rocketing to above 11 per over. With no real momentum building for his side at the crease, captain Muzamil Dogar was watchful after the chase became pretty much out of reach at 5-78 in 14 overs. Muzamil and Haseeb broke the shackles in the last part of the innings adding another 63 runs off 30 balls, but it was all too late as the Stars comfortably had scored 44 runs too many and won the game convincingly.

Nauman Rafique was awarded the MOTM award for his brilliant new bowl spell, dismantling the top order of Defenders of Peace with figures of 2-11 in his 4 overs. Whilst the Defenders would feel gutted to not have made a better claim at the chase earlier in their innings especially considering the late innings carnage by the 6th wicket partnership!

Scorecard summary is as follows;

Man of the match;