With that, it’s time for us to take your leave. This is Akshay Bhide, signing off, on behalf of my co-commentator Karthik Raj and scorer Bishal Mandal. Bye bye.
A solid comeback from Hong Kong after losing their opening game against Malaysia. They are now placed second in the points table of Group B. Oman will now face Malaysia tomorrow in the final Group fixture. Let’s wait and see whether they manage to bounce back.
8:51 AM
IST, 12:21 PM Local Time: That’s it. Hong Kong register their first win of this
edition. They lost to Malaysia yesterday but have bounced back today. They beat
Oman by 41 runs to grab two points. Oman have gotten off to a losing start and
now find themselves in a must-win territory.
Chasing 122, Oman lost four wickets inside the powerplay. Ayush Shukla bowled a lethal spell upfront and sent back Mohammed Al Balushi (2), Waheed Al Balushi (1) and Muzaffar Shiralkar (1). Nasrulla Rana cleaned up Zubair Al Balushi (0) as Oman reeled at 26/4 at the end of the powerplay.
Shuaib Al Balushi scored 20 at the top of the order before getting knocked over just before the drinks break. Oman’s batters really struggled and they kept falling behind the required run rate. Eventually, they finished their innings on 80/6, with their skipper Sufyan Mehmood top-scoring with 26*.
Ayush Shukla stood out with the ball for Hong Kong. He picked up three wickets, giving away 23 runs in his four-over spell. Mohammad Ghazanfar bowled an economical spell of 2/10 as they put in an all-around performance to defend the total successfully.
Hong Kong won the toss and opted to bat first. They lost both their openers in Anshuman Rath (3) and Nizakat Khan (5) inside the powerplay. Babar Hayat (23) along with Hafeez Khan resurrected the innings nicely with a 51-run stand before the former fell in the 11th over. It allowed Oman to pull back things.
Hafeez got stumped on 33. Shahid Wasif (2) and Shiv Mathur (12) failed to make an impact with the bat. Skipper Yasim Murtaza (18*) and Ehsan Khan (16) contributed lower down the order as Hong Kong finished their innings on 121/8.
For Oman, all of their five bowlers entered the wickets column. Mohammed Al Balushi was the pick of them. He picked up three wickets, conceding only 17 runs in his four overs. The batters then failed to back up their bowlers and they lost the game by 41 runs.