The opening day of the PCB’s new tri-series saw Azeem Ghumman’s u19 team emerge triumphant. The idea behind this 10 game T20 tournament is for the u19 team to play a regional side in the morning and the winner of that game wins the right to face the Pakistan A team in the evening.

The day began with the u19 team squaring off against Faisalabad who were one of the finalists in the recently concluded RBS T20 Cup. The u19 boys batted first and put 164/6 on the board thanks to a captain’s knock of 56 runs off 45 balls from Azeem Ghumman. He was supported by a 30 from Sarmad Bhatti and a 25 from Usman Qadir.

The Faisalabad team fell short in their chase only managing to reach 156 in their 20 overs. Most of the damage was done by Abdul Ameer who took 3 wickets whilst standing in for injured pacer Fayyaz Butt. Ahmed Shahzad also took 2 wickets as did spinner Shahzaib Ahmed.

Azeem Ghumman won man of the match in the first game and the u19 team earned the right to play the Pakistan A team in the evening.

This time the Pakistan u19 team put up a total of 168/5 for the A team to chase. This included 40 runs off 21 balls from captain Azeem, 33 runs from Ahsan Ali and 32 runs from Rameez Aziz.

The Pakistan A team only managed to reach 148 before they ran out of deliveries to face. Only Bilawal Bhatti and Ali Asad put up any real resistance scoring 30-odd runs each. Raza Hasan’s death bowling was superb and really restricted the Pakistan A team from making the most of their wickets in hand.

Once again u19 captain Azeem walked away with both the victory and the man of the match award, his second of the day.

Speaking exclusively to Cricistan.com Azeem said “Both these games were a big deal for us. Faisalabad reached the final of the RBS T20 and the other team was the Pakistan A team. But we worked hard as a team and my form was good too.”

I asked Azeem why Raza Hasan and Ahmed Shahzad were playing with the u19 team instead of at being kept at the training camp. Azeem replied “I guess the thinking is that they’re better off playing competitive games in this tournament.”

Well done to Azeem for leading from the front, more Pakistani captains need to take on that responsibility. Let’s hope Shahid Afridi is watching!