On a green surface at Hong Kong Cricket Club, 40 wickets fell in two days and at the end of it all, Kowloon Cricket Club emerged victorious in the Hancock Shield, a traditional Premier League fixture.
Sent in to bat first on day one, KCC recovered from being 68-6 to reach 165 in the first innings thanks to an even half-century from Dan Pascoe. Pascoe also received support from Aizaz Khan (38), but it was HKCC’s opening bowlers Gareth Harte (4-43) and Raag Kapur (3-45) who gave the home side an edge.
But that advantaged quickly evaporated as HKCC collapsed to 62-7 by stumps, still trailing by 105.
On day two, they were able to eek out another 49 runs thanks to an unbeaten 48 from Ryan Buckley. Aizaz Khan backed up his contribution with the bat with 4-43. Ehsan Nawaz took 3-21.
With a lead of 54 runs, KCC merely needed to bat time and see out the game to claim the Shield. Easier said than done.
This time, they found themselves 49-6 and the lower order could not entirely bail them out on this occasion as they were bowled out for 91. Gareth Harte continued his brilliant game with the ball, taking 5-36 to claim match figures of 9-79.
That left HKCC with 146 to win in a maximum of 41 overs and they had the perfect man to do it.
Nizakat Khan, who had a flight to catch to the Centre of Excellence in Australia, opened the batting and dominated the bowling. However, his team mates were not finding it so easy and when Nizakat was dismissed for 61 off 50 balls, HKCC were 74-5.
The lower order fought hard and took the match to the final 15 minutes until Tanveer Ahmed (3-42) took the final wicket with HKCC still 14 runs shy of their victory target.
Aizaz Khan pick up another four wickets in the second innings to finish with match figures of 8-83.
Scorecard
https://www.crichq.com/#fixtures/470168/1st_innings