Radiant Stars v Trustworthy Knights

The KCL Hundred tournament edition resumed after a pause of 3 weeks, this time with 2 sides who were on a streak of winning and losing. The Knights were looking to continue their good run looking to make it 3 wins in a row, whereas the Stars needed a win to break their winless run so far in the campaign. Winning the toss, the captain of the Stars elected to bat first on a warm Monday evening at Alexander Park.

A steady start was provided by openers Yasir and Tehseen, which was then broken with the score at 35 off 21 balls by Nauman Rafique. With the breakthrough of the opening wicket, Nauman now dug his claws into the Stars picking up two more and ending with figures of 3-22 in his 20 balls, as all 3 top order batters from the stars fell prey to him. With the score at 48-3, it was now the turn of left arm spin to dominate and torment as Ehsan Ul Haye continued to inflict the damage by removing 3 RS batters for just 6 runs in his quota! A run out in between and Ajaz picking up one for himself, the Stars were going absolutely nowhere with their innings at 84-8! Some additional runs by Shahid, Waseeq and Farqaleet contributed in their team’s effort to help reach a total of 104 off 100 balls. However, this was clearly not a total the team would want to post having elected to bat first! A disappointing outing with the bat!

With hardly any scoreboard pressure, the match up of the off spinner against the left handed Rana Faizan also did not go to plan for the Star’s captain as Faizan raced to 20 off his first 5 balls, playing some excellent shots through the cover and maximums down the ground. Faizan continued to dominate with more runs for his side scoring a brisk 41 off 23 balls at a sr of 178 and eventually falling with the score at 68-1 after 35 balls. With the run rate not threatening at all, the Knights were afforded some time with Khurram returning to playing after his surgery, and finding his groove with a watchful 21* alongside his skipper Adeel also remaining not out with a good 26*.

An almost perfect game for the Knights who continue with their excellent unbeaten run. As for the Stars, they are back in that precarious situation having lost all 3 of their matches so far. Things will have to improve and improve fast for them now as the margins for error become minuscule going forward.