Umar Akmal today at the Chinnaswamy Swami showed why Twenty20 is his favourite format as the 24-year-old played a blistering knock to keep Lahore Lions in contention of a semifinals spot. The Lions defeated the Dolphins by 16 runs in a must-win game of the Champions League and are in contention of joining the Kolkata Knights Riders in the last-four from Group B.
Akmal played a gem of an innings and helped the Lions to recover from a wobbling start and post a competitive 164 runs total on the board. He made an unbeaten 45-ball 73, featuring five sixes and five boundaries, and stitched a crucial 92-run partnership with Saad Nasim for the fifth wicket.
The Lions, however, couldn’t get a start they might be hoping for from Ahmed Shehzad (6) and Nasir Jamshed, as the former was dismissed on the third over of the match. Lahore lost wickets in bunches as Jamshed (10), Agha Salman (1) and skipper Mohammad Hafeez (8) fell within a space of twelve runs.
It looked unlikely that the Hafeez-led side will able to post a competitive total, leave alone par, on the board, but Nasim and Akmal revive the innings with their counterattack. Nasim, who started slowly, finished with a well compiled 26-ball 43, featuring three sixes and fours each.
All-rounder Robbie Frylinck was the pick of the bowlers for the South African team and finished with three wickets, while Kyle Abbott and Cameron Delport took one wicket each.
“It’s a beautiful game of cricket and we know that T20 can give you anything,” Hafeez said in the post-match presentation. “Umar Akmal was exceptionally good and Saad Nasim gave him excellent support. Everyone chipped in very well.”
The Dolphins never looked like chasing a steep total and lost wickets on regular intervals. Frylinck, however, scored a fifty at the end but it proved too late too little for the South Africans as they were knocked out of the tournament.
“We just haven’t clicked, we arrived prepared really well,” skipper van Wyk said. “The Perth game could have been so different so easily, and you know what the consequences of that might have been.”
