Glenmore lost the toss in Final and were asked to bat on the same interesting pitch that treated us like international players with its varying bounce. Nasir went on to bat with Burhan as per the plan but got out to a wonderful delivery hitting on his pads. Ram went in as a #3 batsman and started with caution and defiance as Naeem’s pace was unmatchable to my office-boy hands. As per Ram it was one of the most challenging bowling he had experienced so far in Calgary as this pitch was playing its own game with us and we just had to deal with that in the first few overs. Burhan and Ram were on the roll when Munawar’s delivery hit the bad spot on the pitch hitting Burhan’s stumps. That was a big blow to a very cautious and smart innings – his score of 8 doesn’t give justice to big support that he provided to Ram. The new man in – Umar was on his own plato as usual with his calm approach to the situation and taking his time to put ones and twos together to make a big score. After scoring 28 runs, Ram tried to take a risky single and paid for by getting run out cheaply. Umar went on fantastic with Anjan and the score was ticking and that stage it looked that we can get close to 150 runs Anjan got out to a fine ball but not without scoring his typical . Anjan scored 18 and Sohail bhai stole 12 runs with 1s and 2s in 12 balls. Pasha and Nadeem tried to move the score forward a little bit at the end and we ended up with 130 on the board.  The score was not as expected and the team know that they have  to step up the to defend the total . The bowling attack started Sheraz and Umar as planned and as expected they both rose to the occasion. But the fielder couldn’t provide as the needed support at that time by dropping two crucial catches. Credit should be given to the opening spells though for their positive attitude and focused approach. Pasha finally got us a wicket of Rashid on his special ball of the day in 5th over. Then Nadeem followed with his special ball to get rid of another batsman Ahmad.but the runs were coming for Ahmadiyya and they reached 72 in 10 overs and 2 wickets down. Things were getting out of hand and we needed to make some changes in bowling. We brought our spinners into attack to throw some challenges at the batsmen and expected a mistake in the process but our efforts were in vain despite some good bowling and batsmen kept getting singles and doubles and eventually were successful in the chase.

We did lose the battle but war has just begun. We will come even more prepared for the next season and will try again to win the trophy.