After two consecutive defeats, Lahore Badshahs won their first match in the Indian Cricket League Twenty20 Championship, beating Ahmedabad Rockets by 31 runs, at the Sardar Vallabbhai Patel stadium, in Ahmedabad, on Sunday night.
Badshahs played the match without Inzamam-ul Haq and Azhar Mahmood led the side in his absence.
Put to bat by Rockets, Badshahs scored a modest 136 for nine wickets in the allotted 20 overs.
Chasing a relatively low target, Rockets could not take off properly and lost their star batsman Ryan Campbell in the first over for just one run.
Wickets kept on falling at regular intervals. The highest total by a Rockets player was 26 by Parvez Aziz off 30 balls. Only two other players were able to reach double figures -- Reetinder Sodhi (14) and Bhima Rao (unbeaten 13).
Skipper Damien Martyn was bowled when he tried to loft a delivery from
Azhar Mahmood over the wicket-keeper, but missed.
The experienced Saqlain Mushtaq got rid of the tail-enders with figures of three for 26 runs.
For Badshahs, Naved-ul-Hasan (2/11) and Shahid Nazir (2/8) too kept the Rockets tied down.
If the extras (19) conceded by the Badshahs were to be subtracted from the Rockets total, they would have never crossed the 100-run mark.
