LAHORE - Shoaib Nasir hammered unbeaten 143 to put Rawalpindi in driving seat on the third of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final being played here at the Gaddafi Stadium.
Rawalpindi resumed their second innings from 0-0 in 2 overs on Tuesday and posted 264-4 in 83 overs. Shoaib slammed 143 hitting 20 fours and two sixes while 75-run by Babar Naeem were also another major contribution in the Pindi team’s total.
Rawalpindi lost their Adnan Mehmood for duck at the score of 1-2. Haseeb Azam then joined opener Shoaib and added 62 runs for the second-wicket partnership which was broken by Mudassir Ali when Haseeb was playing at 11 and the team’s total was 2-64 in 24.2 overs. Naveed Malik then came to the crease but he also could not contribute well and could manage to add only 13 runs in his team’s total.
The partnership of the day was witnessed between opener Shoaib and Babar Naeem as both of them contributed significant 159 runs for the fourth-wicket partnership. Sarmad Bhatti of Islamabad broke this valuable partnership when Babar was playing at 75 and the team’s total was 241-4 in 75.5 overs. At the close of the day, Rawalpindi were 281-4 in their second innings with opener Shoaib and Awais Zia were unbeaten at 152 and 18 runs respectively.  No Islamabad bowler could bowl their opponents out cheaply. Juniad Nadir, Mudassar Ali, Shehzad Azam and Sarmad Bhatti were the bowlers who managed to get only one wicket each for their team.
Earlier in their first innings, Rawalpindi scored 211 runs with Awais Zia and Zahid Mansoor excelling for their team when it mattered the most and lifted their team to post a decent total of 211 runs as the openers and middle order batsmen failed to gather fightable runs for their team.
All the Islamabad batsmen except Afaq Raheem (85) failed to resist the outstanding attack of Pindi bowlers and gifted their wickets cheaply as Islamabad could manage to score 175 runs all out in 64.4 overs.

Scoreboard

RAWALPINDI 1ST INNINGS: 211
ISLAMABAD 1ST INNINGS: 175
RAWALPINDI 2ND INNINGS:
Shoaib Nasir not out     143
Adnan Mehmood lbw b Nadir     0
Haseeb c Kashif b Mudassar    11
Naved Malik c Afaq b Shehzad    13
Babar c Kashif b Sarmad    75
Awais Zia not out    10
EXTRAS: (b 7, lb 2, w 3)    12
TOTAL: (4 wickets; 81 overs)    264
TO BAT: Muzammil Nizam, Zahid Mansoor, Talha Qureshi, Akhtar Ayub, Nasir Malik
FOW: 1-2, 2-64, 3-82, 4-241
BOWLING: Junaid Nadir 19-4-51-1, Mudassar Ali 13-6-24-1, Shehzad Azam 20-5-58-1, Imad Wasim 15-0-59-0, Afaq Raheem 5-1-28-0, Sarmad Bhatti 5-2-11-1, Moed Ahmed 4-0-24-0.
MATCH DETAILS:
TOSS: Islamabad
UMPIRES: Shozab Raza and Zameer Haider
TV UMPIRE: Ahmed Shahab
MATCH REFEREE: Khatib Rizwan
RESERVE UMPIRE: Tahir Hussain