Ibad Quraishi CC Wins Regional Club Championship

Regional Club Championship, the final stage of the Inter-club competitions, started on December 20 in Nangarhar province and ended with the Speen Ghar region’s owned Ibad Quraishi cricket club crowned as champions, beating Mangal Zalmi CC by 4 wickets in the final. 

Regional Club Championship 2021 featured five regional clubs, which were the winner of interclub competitions in their respective regions. All participating five clubs, in a round-robin format, played 4 games in the first round among which Ibad Quraishi and Mangal Zalmi with 6 points each, as the top two clubs, advanced to the grand final of the event. 

At the final match, Mangal Zalmi CC from the Band-e-Amir region won the toss and elected to bat first. The Stand-in captain Faisal Khan along with the wicket-keeper batter Hanif started well and shared 108 runs for the first wicket in 19 overs. Faisal Khan led from the front and made 76 runs off 88 balls including 10 boundaries. 

The wicket-keeper batter Hanif Khan also made a half-century and got out after scoring 51 runs off 62 deliveries. The other batters did not contribute to the total and fell one after the other. They made 197/6 after the allotted 35 overs. For IBCC, Ibrahim Abdulrahimzai picked two while Sediq Fazli and Abdullah Adil one wicket each. 

In reply, Zubaid Akbari smashed 3 boundaries in the first over but lost his partner Abdullah Quraishi on the last ball of the first over. Tamim, another astonishing young top-order batter joined Zubaid in the 2nd over, from where both accomplished a match-winning partnership of 84 runs in just 5.4 overs. 

Zubaid Akbari was the 2nd man to depart after making 48 off just 21 balls including 10 boundaries. The skipper Akar Mosazai joined Tamim and both kept scoring runs for their team to help them build a good platform for the other batters to come. Both shared 66 runs between them for the 3rd wicket, before the skipper nicked Hadi behind to the keeper to depart for 31 and leave this team on 162/3 after 17.2 overs. 

Hafizullah Hadi struck trice after that removing Tamim, Esmat Alam, and Ibrahim one after the other, but that excellent bowling effort wasn’t enough to stop the Speen Ghar region-owned Ibad Quraishi CC from chasing the total. The 198 run target was chased by the IBCC in 21.5 overs with 4 wickets in hand. Hafizullah Hadi picked 5/30 for MZCC. Ibrahim Abdulrahimzai who had picked 2/34 off his 7 overs and had also struck 16 runs off 9 deliveries was awarded as the man of the final match. 

Faisal Khan (MZCC) who had scored 267 runs in 5 innings at an average of 53.40 runs including a hundred and a half-century was awarded as the best batter of the tournament. The right-arm fast bowler Nasim Mangal from Danger CC (MAR), picked 12 wickets at 8.83 was adjudged as the best bowler, while Zubaid Akbari, after scoring 249 runs and picking 3 wickets was awarded as the best player of the tournament. 

The tournament was the last and final activity of the domestic cricket department of ACB which lasted long for 11 days in Ghazi Amanullah Khan Cricket Stadium, Nangarhar.