The final stages of Emirates D20 were a hotly contested period with teams scrambling for a semi-final spot. On the last day of the league stage, Abu Dhabi and Ajman required a win to progress into the final four.
Both the teams were able to move ahead into the next round with a win in their respective games. Let’s look at the match report of the two games held on 26th June 2022.
Match 29: Abu Dhabi vs Dubai
The first match of the last day, saw Abu Dhabi go head-to-head against Dubai. Both teams needed a win to progress into the next stage, but it was Abu Dhabi who had the last laugh.
Abu Dhabi elected to bat first and made an imposing score of 196/5, on the back of a 88 off 67 from Atta Ur Rahim. Ghulam Murtaza, with a 37 off of 12, also contributed to the total.
Talking about the chase, the Dubai team got off to a good start from their openers, Rameez Shahzad (42 of 31) and Ronak Panoly (25 of 12) but could not build on to their start. Ali Nazeer with 62 off of 42 contributed the most but others could not muster runs at good strike rate and, eventually, fell short. Dubai were only able to make 167/5 and gave their place to Abu Dhabi in the semi-finals. They now play Ajman in the Semifinal.
Abu Dhabi: 196/5
Atta Ur Rahim: 88(67), Ghulam Murtaza: 37(12)
Adnan Danish: 4-21-1, Muhammad Uzair Khan: 4-28-1
Dubai: 167/5
Ali Naseer: 62(42), Rameez Shahzad: 42(31)
Ali Naseer: 4-40-3, Ronak Panoly: 2-20-1
Match 30: Ajman vs Fujairah
Ajman, with eight points in nine games, needed a win against the table-toppers to get into the semi-final. Fujairah, on the other hand, had already booked their semi-final berth. After winning the toss, Fujairah chose to field first and asked the Ajman team to bat.
Coming on to play a must-win game, the Ajman batters looked prepared and quickly moved towards a decent total with the help of the top four batters. It was, however, Luqman Hazrat, who took their score further with a 49 off of 21 balls. Ajman ended their innings with a score of 172/10. Umair Ali, from the Fujairah side, took four wickets.
Chasing this big a total seemed problematic to Fujairah batters as they kept on losing their wickets and could only muster 113/10 before getting all out in 16.3 overs. Hafeez ur Rehman and Shahnawaz Khan both took three wickets each to contain the Fujairah team.
Ajman now play Abu Dhabi in the semi-final.
Ajman: 172/10
Luqman Hazrat: 49(21), Sandeep Singh: 32(20)
Shahnawaz Khan: 2-4-3, Hafeez ur Rehman: 3.3-30-3
Fujairah: 113/10
Zeeshan Abid: 24(21), Muhammad Waseem: 19(6)
Umair Ali: 4-24-4, Muhammad Waseem: 3.5-48-3
