Haider, Asif Crush Balochistan as Northern Emerge Victorious:
The National T20 Cup 2021 began with a typical Pakistani T20 Match. It was a low scoring, yet entertaining encounter with Northern crushing Balochistan by 6 wickets. The stars of the show for Northern were their bowlers, Haider Ali and Asif Ali.
Balochistan didn’t look comfortable at any point in the game. They were terrible with the bat for the first 12-15 overs. The rescue mission happened between Amad Butt and Kashif Bhatti who put up a partnership of 66 runs, but still Balochistan could only manage 139 runs on the board. Amad Butt was the top scorer with 34(24). Apart from Amad Butt and Bismillah Khan, every batsmen from Balochistan had a strike rate of 100 or less. Haris Rauf and Mohammad Nawaz picked 2 wickets each.
Meanwhile the chase began quite fluently with Zeeshan Malik looking rock solid. Soon Northern lost Umar Amin. After the dismissal of Umar Amin, Haider Ali delivered a masterclass. After a rough CPL season, Haider Ali delivered something above the expectations. He completed his fifty off just 28 balls. Meanwhile after two quick wickets of Rohail Nazir and skipper Shadab Khan, Asif Ali decided to finish the game in a hurry. Asif Ali smashed 43(20) and Northern sealed the game with 3 overs and 6 wickets to spare.
This was Northern’s fifth successive win over Balochistan. Balochistan till date have never defeated Northern in National T20 Cup’s history. Haider Ali was awarded Man of the Match for his brilliant batting.
