24th October 2010
Sunday and my day off since I'm not playing in today's friendly. Time to write after watching Habeebullaah's international U19 debut yesterday but I better start from the start. I didn't play in Tuesday's T20 match but Mol did and I was pretty happy that he only scored 2. Maybe I would replace him for the next match. We played mirpur11 on Wednesday in a must win youth game. After winning the toss, I elected to bat first on a green pitch. Both our openers got starts, Mol scoring 18 and Murch 21 as we were 2/47 after 9.1 overs. Myself and Mohammad put on a great partnership as I reached my fifty as Mohammad was looking for a hundred. I wasn't very happy though when he ran me out, and I gave him the stare before heading back to the pavilion after scoring 62 from 75 deliveries. Mohammad and Khan put on some quick runs, a 99* partnership in 47 balls. Mohammad finished with his deserved unbeaten century although maybe not so much deserved after running me out but Khan's unbeaten 43 from only 21 balls gave us a very good total of 273/3 from our 40 overs.
2 early wickets from our fast bowler, Kasee Baldry improved our chances, before Dravid was run out and Whiteman struck with the wicket of Abdullah for 15 and it was 4/67. Dhoni (39), Hossain (51) and Razzak (32*) gave them some chance but they didn't go on to convert their good starts and didn't score fast enough as they finished 201/7, as we won by 72 runs. Baldry was the pick of the bowlers with 3/22 (8) while Reshma, Murubi and Whiteman took a wicket each and Habeebullaah kept it tight with 0/28 from 8.
Yesterday was a big moment in Aravinda Habeebullaah's career as he made his U19 national debut for Sri Lanka. Myself, Ruben Mol, Andrew Whiteman and Joseph Murch went with him to watch him play in Sri Lanka. He was batting at 11 but he was a bowler so that wouldn't have minded him. Pakistan batted first on a flat pitch. Habeebullaah was brought on as second change in the 12th over with Pakistan at 78/1. He unfortunately got hit a bit with 0/33 in his first 5 over spell. He was brought back on after 30 overs but was smashed first over back in the attack. His second and third over were a lot better though and he was unlucky not to get a wicket when the keeper missed a stumping. He finished with 0/64 from 10 overs. Pakistan U19 managed to score 331/5, Sri Lanka U19 scoring 301/6 in reply, 30 runs short of their target.
My stats:
Ruben Mol's stats: