Junaid Zia bags 7-7 as Bangladesh A are destroyed
By Gul Hameed Bhatti
KARACHI: The much-maligned Junaid Zia pulled a bowling performance right out of the top drawer, while taking seven wickets for seven runs, and demolished the visiting Bangladesh A side for a pathetic total of 30 runs, on the second day of Pakistan Customs’ four-day, sixth-round, Pool A Patron’s Trophy Cricket Championship match here at the National Stadium on Tuesday. Customs were triumphant by an innings and 41 runs margin, with more than two days of the encounter still remaining.
Even if one viewed Bangladesh A’s plight in the context of ten of their original 15-member squad having returned home to join the senior team national camp, the crashing down of their batting line-up yesterday was mind-boggling, to say the least. None of the batsmen managed to reach double-figures and, amazingly, there were 16 Extras in a score of 30.
Wicket-keeper Anwar Hossain Piju, off-spinner Fahim Muntasir and pace bowler Alamgir Kabir gathered a pair of ducks each in the match. Five batsmen in each innings failed to open their account.
Of their five matches in the championship, Bangladesh A have now been beaten in four while one game was drawn.
Customs made a modest 189 runs in their only innings of the match. But Bangladesh A had already damaged their cause by being bowled out for a poor 118 in their first outing.
Left-arm fast-medium bowler Stephen John grabbed a hat-trick on the opening day, returning figures of six wickets for 44 runs.
Yesterday, John bowled unchanged with Junaid for 14.4 overs and captured three for 20 to finish with match figures of nine wickets for 64 runs.
The 20-year-old Junaid, a son of Lt Gen (retd) Tauqir Zia, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB)’s former chairman, was simply devastating as he took 7-7 off 7.4 overs of which four were maidens.
Junaid’s figures, certainly, constitute one of the most remarkable bowling feats in Pakistan first-class cricket history. The only person ahead of him in the list of such achievements is the Pakistan Railways’ leg-break bowler Ahad Khan who, in 1964-65, had innings figures of 6.3-4-7-9 in an Ayub Trophy Championship match against Dera Ismail Khan at the Moghalpura Institute Ground in Lahore.
Bangladesh A’s second innings total of 30 is the lowest completed innings score attained by any touring team to Pakistan. In Pakistan’s first-class cricket, only five smaller totals have been registered - the lowest being a score of 20 by National Bank, also against Customs, here at the United Bank Limited (UBL) Sports Complex No.1 Ground in a Patron’s Trophy encounter in the 1998-99 season. Earlier in the day yesterday, Customs resumed at 150 for six and were all out for 189 in 45 overs. Junaid Zia, unbeaten at 22 overnight, failed to add to his score but, of the 39 runs added, Mohtashim Rasheed contributed a run-a-ball 30 in half an hour with the help of six boundaries. Fahim Muntasir made full use of his off-spinning ability and ended the Customs innings with three wickets for six runs in four overs.
In spite of raising their points tally to 12 after their win over Bangladesh A - their first in five matches of which they have lost two and drawn a similar number - Customs will stay at the fifth position in the seven-team Pool A table for the moment. Bangladesh A remain stuck at three points after five matches and are at the sixth spot above Defence Housing Authority (DHA). All these three sides are surely not in contention for the championship final.
Junaid, who recently toured India with the Pakistan A team for a tri-nation series and was named Man of the Tournament in the Emerging Players Trophy event in Sri Lanka earlier, has now taken 28 wickets in eight first-class matches. His previous best bowling figures were five for 78, for Rawalpindi against Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) in a Quaid-e-Azam Trophy Championship game at the Pindi Cricket Stadium in Rawalpindi, in January last year.
Customs will now play their seventh and final round Patron’s Trophy Championship match against Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) here at the National Stadium from next Monday. Bangladesh A will round up their Pool A programme as well as the Pakistan tour with a game against KRL at the UBL Ground from the same day.
hmmm… so he is aiming to be selected in the national squad again, but this time it will be on merit.
Juanid Zia