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National Bank will start favourites when they meet Pakistan Customs in the Patron's Trophy Grade-I Cricket Championship final at the Gaddafi Stadium from tomorrow (Saturday).

APP Adds: A seaming pitch has been prepared for the five-day final. According to the groundsman, Mohammad Bashir, who prepared the pitch, the turf will offer advantage to the team who wins the toss and chooses to bowl first.

"But they have to bowl really well to take advantage of the track on the first day as the pitch will ease out as the match progresses given the sunny weather which is expected to prevail during the duration of the game," he commented.

Customs, who are featuring in the final for the first time, must consider themselves lucky to qualify for the ultimate match as they got better of the fancied Habib Bank on net run-rate.

Both Customs and Habib Bank finished with identical figures in the final 8-team standings. However, Customs went through on a superior run rate of +0.52 against +0.07 achieved by Habib Bank.

Customs gained 37 points from seven matches and so did Habib Bank but NBP with 45 points were the clear table toppers.

In their final league game, Customs crushed fancied Allied Bank Limited by an innings and 108 runs while NBP defeated Agriculture Development of Pakistan (ADBP) by seven wickets in their last match.

NBP, at least, on paper looks definitely a strong team and are favourites to lift the title despite missing Test opener Imran Nazir, who is away in Sharjah. They are led by former international Sajid Ali and also have the services of Test player Qaiser Abbas while lanky Shabbir Ahmad spearheads the new ball attack with the in-form Aleem Musa, who so far had a fine season with the leather.

Customs are led by former Test opener Ali Naqvi. But they have some promising players in Azhar Shafiq, Aamir Bashir, Aamir Iqbal and Naved Latif. Among the bowlers paceman Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan has bowled really well this season and has been admirably supported by Nadeem Iqbal and Stephen John.

ICC umpires Riazuddin and Mian Mohammad Aslam will supervise the match while Shafiq Ahmed will be the match referee.

Teams (from):

National Bank: Sajid Ali (captain), Hanif-ur-Rehman, Qaiser Abbas, Akhtar Sarfraz, Nomanullah, Mohammad Javed, Kamran Akmal, Zahid Saeed, Aleem Musa, Shabbir Ahmed, Athar Laeeq, Shahid Anwar, Saeed Azad, Naeem Tayyab and Naeem Khan.

Pakistan Customs: Ali Naqvi (captain), Ameeruddin, Azhar Shafiq, Nasim Khan, Aamir Bashir, Naved Latif, Nisar Abbas, Aamir Iqbal, Mohtashim Rasheed, Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan, Stephen John, Nadeem Iqbal, Wasim Yousufi and Asif Raza.

© Dawn