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Karachi:Fawad Alam scored a double hundred and captain, Sarfaraz Ahmed a century as Sindh grinded down Southern Punjab on day-three of the four-day day first-class ninth-round Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match at the National Stadium on Wednesday.
Fawad stroked his way to the fourth double century of his career making (211 from 309 balls) while Sarfaraz (131 from 174 balls) scored his first hundred in domestic cricket in five-years to put together a big partnership of 278 runs for the fifth wicket.
Their partnership allowed Sindh to end on 486 in response to Southern’s 517 for 9 declared.
Fawad achieved another personal milestone when he also crossed 12,000 first-class runs.
Their stand effectively ended any hopes that the Southern team harboured of forcing a result in the match and trying to grab second spot in the points table when Sindh resumed on 142 for three this morning.
The two forged their alliance and took Sindh to 253 for four at lunch after overnight batsman, Saad Ali fell early adding just four runs to his overnight score as he was caught for 60 from 106 balls on the bowling of Bilawal Bhatti who finished with four for 82.
But Saad’s overnight partner, Fawad who resumed on 60 showed no intentions of giving up his wicket and he found an able partner in his captain as their century partnership came from just 138 balls in 107 minutes.
Southpaw Fawad who is a prolific scorer in first-class cricket with an imposing batting average of 56 completed his third century of the season after lunch.
Sarfaraz who last scored a century in domestic first-class cricket for PIA against ZTBL way back in 2014 was more aggressive reaching his hundred from 119 balls with 12 fours.
As the two batted together the Southern bowlers wilted on an unresponsive pitch and even the second new ball didn’t produce the desired results for pacers, Bilawal, Zia-ul-Haq and Umaid Asif.
Eventually it was the tall left-arm spinner, Muhammad Irfan who broke through when bowling consistently round the wicket he got one to bounce more from a bowlers run-up patch and Sarfaraz going forward to play a defensive shot top edged to the bowler. Sarfaraz’s innings of 131 spanned 174 balls and included 13 fours.
Fawad, however, found Anwar Ali (28) to be a good partner and carried on reaching his double hundred by hitting off-spinner, Agha Salman to deep mid-wicket for a four to reach his personal milestone.
He was finally caught at deep mid-on trying to hit the same shot against Irfan as his innings included 25 fours.
Bilawal than trapped Hassan Khan leg before for nine and also picked up Anwar caught at first slip and Waleed Ahmed to hasten an end to the Sindh innings while last man Shahnawaz Dhani was run out.
Both teams took the 5 bonus points for batting as they scored 400 plus in their 110 overs.
Scores in brief:
Southern Punjab 517 for 9 declared, 133.3 overs (Zeeshan Ashraf 133, Adnan Akmal 107 not out, Sohaib Maqsood 81; Anwer Ali 5-75, Hassan Khan 2-110)
Sindh 486 all out, 132 overs (Fawad Alam 211, Sarfaraz Ahmed 131, Saad Ali 60; Zia-ul-Haq 3-105, Muhammad Irfan 2-129)