In the first RBS semi Finals Faisalabad Wolves defeated a star studded Lahore Lions, Mohammad Hafeez played a classic innings and scored the first century of the tournament. The Wolves Scored 211, Butt’s decision to bowl first back fired on him as Hafeez and Asif gave an opening stand of 117.  Lahore’s bowling was off color today and was below par on top of that defensive field placement and wrong bowling changes didn’t help Lahore. The openers were the main heroes for Faislabad.

It was a flat wicket and 211 was chaseable for Lions and they were on Target untill the 13th over. But they kept on losing wickets at regular intervals Akmal brothers started off aggressively but couldn’t last for long and when Salman Butt got run out the match was over for Lions. Misbah led the Wolves intelligently he had better field placement and better bowling changes, when Lahore’s batsmen were coming out of the crease against fast bowlers he asked his wicket keeper to stand up as a result the batsmen couldn’t score freely anymore, Salman did a great job behind the wickets even though he misjudged a catch of Kamran Akmal. The Wolves have a very potent spin attack and they have proved they can beat any team in the tournament.

Stallions Vs Dolphins

The match is still in progress, The stallions must have felt today as if they were playing in India, the crowd was hostile, the umpires were biased, and the commentators were horribly biased.

Batting first the Stallions scored 149, Imran Nazir scored 38 he got retired hurt on 20 but came back, other than Nazir and Malik nobody else could score anything of note, Rana scored 10 and Razzaq could muster only 6, at one stage it looked as if the Lions will not be able to cross 125 but a cool and calculated batting by Shoaib Malik ensured that he bats till end and maximizes the score of his team.

What disgusted me the most is the biased umpiring against Sialkot, Noballs and wide balls were not given against Karachi bowlers, at least three plumb lbw decisions and one clear caught behind was not given to Sialkot bowlers.

The Karach crowd and their commentators went berserk when Shahzaib Hassan punished Asif in the first over but Razzaq took two wickets in his first over and sent both openers back in the pavillion, and silenced the whole stadium. Asif took another two wickets in the next over and Karachi was on the back foot and Sialkot was at top. In came Afridi who thrashed every bowler in his brief stay the crowd was as loud as it could have been the commentators were acting like cheer leaders for Karachi but the momen Afridi got out the euphoria turned into hopelessness, Afridi as always since he was not the captain didn’t played sensibly and accoriding to situation like Malik did for his team.

The crowd started leaving the ground even though that Karachi could still have won the match, Fawad Alam played a gem of a knock of 41(28)  balls and almost brought his team in sight of victory, after him Sami and Tanvir played brief cameos, 9 runs required from 10 balls is when Sami got run out and the Dolphins lost by 7 runs. Just because of the biased and unfair umpiring I think the Stallions deserved this victory, eventhough through out the tournament I liked the Dolphins but the way the whole system was rigged and skewed in favor of Dolphins they didn’t deserved to be in the finals.

Hats off to Sialkot and heartiest congratulations.

I  am very impressed with Sami he led his team very well until he was derailed by Afridi’s batting, he fought till end and almost took his team home, I think he deserves the leadership of Karachi.

Shame on Afridi for not accepting responsibility for his own failure he blamed it on the coach that he didn’t do proper planning. I am sure by making this statement he has made a lot of enemies in Karachi association.

Shame on Geo TV for producing the most biased and un fair presentation in the history of Pakistan cricket.