DAMMAM-: (Saudi Arabia) Eastern Province Cricket Association (EPCA) season 2021 – 2022 has started with EXPERTISE T/20 Blast Tournament in which 45 teams’ participated and 229 matches were played. The tournament was sponsored by EXPERTISE Company, who is genuine supporter of sports in the region. Mr. K. S. Shaikh who is the Director of Operations at Expertise Co. handed over the cheque to Mr. Farhat Mahmood, President of EPCA along with Mr. Imtiyaz Meerkar GS – EPCA. tournament matches were held on ABU HADERIYA EPCA Cricket Grounds, under the supervision and leadership of EPCA executive committee who is working with Saudi Arabia Cricket Federation (SACF) to develop cricket in Eastern province.
Mr. K. S. Sheikh (on the left) is handing over the sponsorship cheque to Mr. Farhat Mahmoud (on the right).
The Expertise T/20 Blast tournament was divided into three different leagues, Premier, Prime and 1st Division. Eight Teams (Pak Saudi, FireOX Unit, Intelligent Hawks, Enerco, Kanoo Stickers, Tamimi, Pan Gulf, Cloud 7 Qalandars C. C.) participated in the Premier Division to fight for the T/20 supremacy. 55 matches were conducted in the league stage. Top four teams qualified for Semi-Final. Pak Saudi & FireOX Unit emerged victorious against their arch reviles Intelligent Hawks & Enerco C. C. in the Semi-Final Matches. The final stage was set at highway # 06 ground between the cricket giants of Eastern Province Pak Saudi & FireOX Unit for ultimate T/20 title. Batting first Pak Saudi set a target of 168. Shoaib Ameen played an excellent knock of 46 run making sure that the team reaches a reasonable total. Saad Khan & Nasir Khan also scored 35 & 37. Falak Sher and Mohammad Irfan grabbed 2 wickets each from FireOX Unit. With a huge batting side FireOX Unit started that chase with great confidence, but FireOX Unit bating started to tumble when Nasir khan was brought to the attack and picked the important wicket of inform batsman Abdul Mannan, which turned around the match for Pak Saudi. FireOX Unit could not recover them from this heavy loss and did put up a valuable fight but was not able to chase the target. Bilal Shabir who scored 56 runs of 40 balls was the top scorer from FireOX Unit. Pak Saudi Emerged as T/20 winners for Expertise T/20 Blast tournament and Nasir Khan was declared the Man of the Match. Kahif Abbas of Intelligent Hawks scored 454 runs and stood as the highest run scorer of the tournament. Waqas Alvi from FireOX Unit took 14 wickets with an average of 18.21 and was titled the best bowler of the tournament.
Qualified for the finals.
It was a thrilling final between to the two best sides of the division. KRCC had a great start while batting first Raif Arif scored quick 22 in just 10 Balls and Imran Moiz contributed with 41 runs of 26 balls. KRCC fought back and restricted AURCO at a low total of 168 in 20 overs.
In response Inzamam from KRCC have given much needed breakthrough and got an in-form batsman Fouqiat Abbas on a duck, but with the experience of Ali Mehdi, Qadir Abbasi, and Syed Ahsan Naqvi scoring 19, 38 & 39 in the middle order gave a second chance for AURCO. Nevertheless, the knock from M. Naeem 54 in 36 balls snatched the victory from KRCC and was declared the Man of Match.
AURCO CC emerged victorious and became the Champions of Expertise T20 Blast for Prime division.
AURCO Cricket Club
The First Division represented the largest pool amongst the three separate division of Premier (8 Teams), Prime (14 Teams) and First (23 teams). The first division teams were split into 4 groups of round robin matches.
The finals were between Khobar Gymkhana and Al Safa, another brilliant batting effort by Ahmad Raouf (67 off 40 balls) helped Khobar Gymkhana win by 3 wickets and 26 balls to spare. Regardless of the final result Al Safa Cricket Club must be proud of their performance having made an appearance in the final of their debut season.
The batting charts were led by Ahmed Raouf (536 runs, 5 x 50, and 1 x 100) and Abu Hurairah (506 runs, 3 x 50, 2 x 100) from Khobar Gymkhana and Asharq KKR respectively. Talha Shahid (18 wickets) lead the bowlers followed by Faisal Shakeel Ahmed (15 wickets) representing Asharq KKR and Shayan 11 respectively.
