The quarter final of the 3rd ACM Gold t20 Day League was played between two evenly matched teams, Titans CC and Karachi Patriots. Titans won the toss and decided to bat first and on a dusty, spinning track at Asghar Ali Shah stadium, the batsmen struggled as spinners ran through the batting line up and Titans could only manage 108 for the loss of 9 wickets at the end of 20 overs. Azfar Irfan was the highest scorer with 32 runs while Noman Butt got 25 and Fahad Shah and Khalid Khursheed contributed 18 runs each. For Patriots, sameer Ahmedani though a bit expensive managed to get 4 wickets while Adnan Ghazi took 3 wickets and Adeel Abbasi and Rizwan Merchant picked up a wicket each.
In reply, The Patriots start was also identical to Titans as the batsmen struggled to come to terms with the tough batting conditions and Faisal Butt and faraz Ahmed were out early. Tayyab R Balagamwala got 19 runs while Aamir Motiwala and Atif Ahmed got good starts with 10 runs each but were out when the innings started to gain momentum. The match was in the balance as Patriots were reduced to 65 for six but senior all rounder Adeel Abbasi stepped up to the plate with 27 not out off 22 deliveries while the six machine Usman Yunus Ghani took little notice of the pitch condition and managed 30 valuable not out runs off just 17 deliveries and hit 3 sixes and 2 fours as Patriots scraped home with 8 balls to spare and for the loss of 7 wickets. Titan’s bowlers fought very hard and bowled some extraordinary deliveries but in the end patriots turned out to be the eventual victors in this exciting encounter. For Titans, Zeeshan and Azfar got 2 wickets each while Ahad and Fahad took a wicket each. Karachi Patriots will now play Benitoz Panthers in the semi final on 11th Feb 2018 while Daewoo CC has already qualified for the finals.
Karachi Patriots won by 3 wickets.
