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Faisal Iqbal stroked a superb double century to guide Karachi Blues into an impregnable position in the Quaid-i-Azam Trophy National Grade-I Cricket Championship match against Sargodha at the UBL Sports Complex here on Wednesday.

By stumps on the penultimate day of the match, Sargodha, who reached 54 for two in the second innings, were battling to save the match after conceding a lead of 265 on the first innings.

Sargodha's plight could have been more precarious had Suleman Huda not floored a sitter at mid-on off Salman Fazal's second delivery that allowed Naved Latif, then 20, to finish the day on 25. Misbah-ul-Haq survived 44 balls for a solitary single.

Karachi Blues owed their huge total of 445 in 143.1 overs to Faisal Iqbal, who accumulated exactly 200 in a meticulous knock which lasted eight minutes short of nine hours - 532 minutes to be precised.

This was an innings which will definitely do a world of good to Faisal Iqbal's precocious talents and silenced all those who have unfairly been unkind to him in the past few months.

Having resumed the day 91 in a total of 212 for five, Faisal took another 30 minutes to complete his maiden first-class hundred. He reached the three-figure in five fours and 33 minutes off 236 balls with the help of seven fours. His previous best score was 99 for Pakistan 'A' against Kenya in the unofficial Test at Nairobi last July.

The most notable feature of Faisal's chanceless 345-ball innings was that he seldom went for adventurous shots and mainly concentrated stroking into the gaps between covers and square-leg. The double hundred includes just 14 fours but as many as 74 singles, 20 twos and 10 threes.

An weary-looking Faisal was ninth out at 445 when he holed out to mid-wicket after featuring in two useful partnerships. Former Test captain Rashid Latif (67 off 82 balls with eight fours) helped the youngster put on 107 for the seventh wicket in 110 minutes while tailender Tabish Nawab (15) added 76 for the ninth wicket in just over an hour.

Sargodha's pacer Umair Hasan toiled through 26.1 overs to claim a career-best five for 94. Fellow paceman Faisal Khan Afridi took two for 57 and part-time leg-spinner Mohammad Hafeez two for 47.

© Dawn