dolat 0 - 5 Bahawalpur (387173255)

3810 punters turned up at dolat Arena, and despite threatening clouds on the horizon, no rain came. Rolf Langerud was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Harald Walter and Gerolf Eidmann. dolat tactics involved an interesting 4-4-2 combination. They fielded: Jaffar - Jawad, Imtisal, Shahadat, Kabir - Rao, Shahzad, Leghari, Tassadaq - Pirzada, Saqib.

Bahawalpur decided to use a 4-4-2 set up. The following players had been chosen: Khawar - Fakhir, Naik, Khan, Niaz - Faiz, Mujahid, Saadi, Abbasi - Noon, Hafeez.

Bahawalpur's G. Khan left the field after 13 minutes because of a nasty blow to the shin. His replacement was T. Aurangzeb. Bahawalpur's goal to make the score 0 - 1 came via a questionable penalty, but A. Niaz struck it home without a second thought. With 27 minutes played, a quick exchange of passes on the left wing freed N. Abbasi of Bahawalpur to slip through the defence and score another goal for the visitors. That made the score 0 - 2. With 30 minutes played, J. Noon nearly put the visitors another one up as he broke through in the middle and fired from just outside the box, but his shot passed just over the bar. 0 - 2 was the score after the first half. Bahawalpur had most of the ball, with 58 percent of possession.

H. Jaffar got a fingertip on R. Hafeez's shot from the left 52 minutes in, and managed to keep the visitors from going up another goal. The home side worked hard to get through the middle and as a result, had a good chance of getting one back as M. Pirzada tried lifting the ball over keeper T. Khawar. Unfortunately, the ball went just over the bar. R. Saadi of Bahawalpur took advantage of a mistake on the home side's right after 73 minutes which increased the away team's lead to 0 - 3. Bahawalpur increased their lead after 75 minutes when J. Noon broke through on the right, upping the score to 0 - 4, much to the home crowd's dismay. With 76 minutes played, Bahawalpur put themselves up 0 - 5 after an attack from the right, caused by a defensive blunder. The scorer was T. Aurangzeb. At this point, it was obvious that the players of Bahawalpur lowered the tempo and became more defensively oriented. Possession in this half belonged to Bahawalpur, who controlled the ball 67 percent of the time.

dolat's top performer was clearly A. Shahzad. H. Rao turned in a dismal performance, however. R. Hafeez performed admirably for Bahawalpur. On the other hand, T. Aurangzeb's play was disheartening. The match ends 0 - 5.