After Pakistan National T20, the 2021-22 season moves on to the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy.
Sindh will start the seventh round of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy 2021-22 from an unusually high position in the six-team points table. Sindh has not finished in the top three in either of the previous two seasons since the domestic format was revised in 2019.
This season has seen a turnaround for the Asad Shafiq-led team, who thrashed Balochistan by an innings and 188 runs in their round-six encounter to earn their first win of the season and amass enough points (28) to overtake Southern Punjab at the top of the standings.
Sindh has amassed a total of 80 points. Central Punjab is second on the standings with 76 points, having won their first match of the season in the previous round, a thumping innings triumph against Southern Punjab.
Southern has dropped from first to third place with 74 points after an innings loss to Central. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is in fourth place. They also won their first match, a hard-fought four-wicket victory over Northern at Karachi’s NBP Sports Complex.
Northern is in fifth place with 53 points, while Balochistan is a point behind and in last place among the six teams.In their seventh-round match, Southern Punjab will face Balochistan at the UBL Sports Complex in Karachi.
Tayyab Tahir of Southern Punjab is now the season’s fourth-highest run-scorer. The right-hander has a total of 546 runs, including a double century and four fifties. Southern Punjab will be banking on left-arm spinner Ali Usman for breakthroughs this season, as the 29-year-old has 29 wickets to his name, including two five-wicket hauls. Naveed Yasin has been replaced in the Southern Punjab team by opener Zeeshan Ashraf.
For the seventh round, Balochistan will have a new captain: opener Imran Butt has stepped down to focus on his batting and replaced by wicketkeeper-batter Bismillah Khan. Imran is Balochistan’s best run-scorer, with 510 runs in six matches at a strike rate of 56.67.
With 15 wickets in four games, Balochistan’s off-spinner Raza-ul-Hasan is the team’s highest wicket-taker.
Shan Masood has been added to Balochistan’s team after being moved from Sindh. Shan did not play for Sindh. Umar Akmal, a seasoned middle-order batsman, will also play for Balochistan.
Sindh’s match versus Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be live-streamed on PCB’s YouTube account from the State Bank Stadium in Karachi.
The return of quick bowler Shahnawaz Dahani would help Sindh even more. In the third T20I of Pakistan’s current tour of Bangladesh, the right-arm made his T20I debut. So far, the 23-year-old has 27 wickets in eight first-class outings.
Abrar Ahmed, a leg-spinner, had the best innings numbers of the season, taking six wickets for 40 runs in the sixth-round encounter to send Balochistan packing.
This season, Sindh opener Ahsan Ali has been in blistering form, following up on his triple-century with a magnificent 194 against Balochistan in the preceding game. Ahsan is in third place among the highest run-scorers (567 runs in only three matches at 283.5).
Mohammad Asghar, a left-arm spinner, has taken 20 wickets for Sindh thus far.
Sharjeel Khan, the opener, will also be available for the match; the left-hander has replaced Shan, who has been called up to the Balochistan team. Opening batsman Sahibzada Farhan has been excellent for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who is now leading the batting statistics.
With two hundred and four fifties, the right-hander has amassed 645 runs in six games at an average of 71.67.
Adil Amin, the right-hander who helped his team out of danger in the first innings against Northern last week with assists from seasoned all-rounders Asif Afridi and Khalid, will lead the joint defending champions’ experienced middle and lower-order.
Adil’s last-ditch effort helped the team recover from a dangerous 77 for six in the first innings to a four-wicket victory in the match. The return of the experienced Iftikhar Ahmed, part of Pakistan T20I team on their tour to Bangladesh, would help Khyber Pakhtunkhwa even more.
Northern Punjab will face Central Punjab in Karachi’s NBP Sports Complex, Pakistan. Northern, who are now in the fifth position, has everything to play for in the seventh-round match.
Last week, the Umar Amin-led team fought valiantly against Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in a close defeat at the same site. The return of batsman Haider Ali and bowler Haris Rauf, though, has given them a boost.
Northern has yet to win a game this season. None of their hitters or bowlers is among the best in the league. However, youthful opener Abu Huraira has been outstanding in his debut first-class season; the right-hander, who represented Pakistan in the ICC Men’s U19 World Cup last year, is batting eighth with 497 runs at 49.70.
Huraira has already surpassed the two-hundred-and-fifty mark. Faizan Riaz, 33, is in second place with 489 runs at 61.13, with two centuries and one fifty. Northern’s leading wicket-taker is Musa Khan, who has 13 wickets in five matches and is ranked 10th in the bowling standings.
Central Punjab will be heartened by their rout of Southern Punjab, which was put in motion by opener Rizwan Hussain’s crushing 253 runs. After holding Southern Punjab to 228 runs, the left-hander struck 34 fours and three sixes to help Central Punjab register a substantial first-innings total of 459. Rizwan’s 253 is the season’s second-highest individual score, after only Ahsan’s undefeated 303.
Abid Ali (611 runs) is now playing the first Test for Pakistan against Bangladesh at Chattogram, and Rizwan has guaranteed that Central does not miss him. Pacer Mohammad Ali (17 wickets) and left-arm spinner Zafar Gohar (17 wickets) have performed admirably for the team thus far.
Last week, pacer Bilawal Iqbal bagged a five-for against Southern Punjab in the second innings. Meanwhile, Ali Shan will take over as wicketkeeper instead of the suspended Junaid Ali, while bowler Ahmed Bashir has been added to the Central Punjab team.
