Lions CC retained their Midcom President’s Cup after Pabalu Silva’s four-wicket haul and an unbeaten 79-run partnership from Mohammad Fazil and Chamara Gunasekara guided the holders to a six-wicket victory over ADCB yesterday.

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With ADCB restricted to 142-8, thanks to Pabalu’s hat-trick and Tariq Afridi’s 56 (four boundaries and two sixes), Lions CC got off to a terrible start losing three early wickets with just 13 on the scoreboard.

Captain Arunalu De Silva (23) repaired the damage but when he was caught off Tariq Afridi, Fazil (66) and Gunasekara (44) showed their potential with the bat, guiding Lions home in the 19th over at Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

De Silva lauded his team’s efforts, particularly that of spinner Pabalu.

“He’s been tremendous throughout the tournament. He’s been our main spin bowler and he’s been bowling superbly,” the skipper said.

“Every time I’ve given him the ball, he delivers the goods so I’m really happy that he’s in my side.”

And the skipper added: “Winning the cup is something but defending the championship is another thing. Defending is quite difficult and we are over the moon.”

Opener Afridi (56) and Rizwan Amanat (43) put on 66 runs for the fourth wicket before Amanat fell to Pabalu, who then clean bowled Ayyaz Butt and had Asim Abbasi stumped to complete his hat-trick.

ADCB captain Nadeem Mohammad said: “We were short of 20 runs I think. If we had got that number of runs on the board, it could’ve been a one-sided match because we have very good bowlers. Unfortunately, Lions had a very good batting lineup and they put on a good show.”