UAE national Nasir Aziz played a stellar role with the bat and ball as Alubond Tigers clinched the Onashi Trading Pan Global Development Ramadan Twenty20 Cup.
The 28-year-old all-rounder scored 44 as Tigers made 188-5 before finishing with figures of 4-20 as they beat Wings by 37 runs at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium.
And Aziz was delighted to end the season on a winning note.
He said: “I’m speechless. It’s a great feeling for me and my team-mates to win this competition.
“This season we were reaching the late parts of the knock-out stages but couldn’t go the full distance. All the guys put in a lot of effort and it paid off in the end because we knew Wings are a very strong team.
“This is one of the biggest Ramadan tournaments in the UAE and you just have to look at the teams in the competition to know how tough the competition is. But in the T20 format, anything is possible. It only takes one ball or a wicket to change the outcome of a match.”
Alubond Tigers got off to a perfect start as Aziz and Irfan Ahmed (33) put on 69 runs for the first wicket after electing to bat first. But it was the couple of cameo knocks from Pakistan international Hasan Raza and Zeeshan Bangesh that propelled their score to 188.
Raza slammed an unbeaten 38 from 15 balls with five fours and a six. Bangesh hit an unbeaten 30 off 19 (two sixes, one four) and shared a 68-run stand for the sixth wicket.
In reply, Wings’ Shahzaib Hasan, another Pakistan international, set the stadium ablaze in the chase with a 24-ball 73. But the 24-year-old saw his team-mates get dismissed cheaply, with only two batsmen reaching double figures.
Shahzaib smashed 11 fours and four sixes and dominated a 61-run opening stand with Ashfaq Ahmed (8) before wickets started to fall at regular intervals from the other end.
Naveed Salem (1-41) broke the opening stand before Aziz struck, taking four of the next five wickets including the prized wicket of Shahzaib.
In what was the first edition of the competition, a total of 20 teams competed in the month-long tournament, sanctioned by Abu Dhabi Cricket Club. Forty-seven matches were played which saw six players score centuries – Gulam Sabir (101, Seven Seas), Rizwan Khan (102, Phoenix Medicines), Andri Berenger (104, Danube), Shahzad Manna (120, Yogi Group), Ramaiz Shahzad (121, UBL) and Hiten Dalal (127, Interface Transworld). There were also three players who claimed a five-wicket haul – Nitesh Rana (5-14, Interface Transworld), Gulbadin Naib (5-14, Wings) and Mudassar Ejaz (5-15, MMS Rental).
