Scorpions beat Friends Kuwait in thrilling Q7KPL season 8 final
The Grand final of the Q7KPL season 8 took place on 16th December 2016 afternoon at the Jabriya Cricket Ground in Jabriya. It was played between the tournament’s two big teams Scorpions and Friends Kuwait and in the neck to neck final Scorpions won by19 runs. In the morning, Scorpions overcame Q7 Kuwait to reach the finals & Friends Kuwait defeated Friday Court to reach the ultimate match played at TCR Ground and Teams Abbasiya ground respectively.
Scorpions won the toss and elected to bat first. Opener Ajaya Kumar was bowled in the second over by Mohammed Arif. By the time the second wicket had fallen, that of South Indian cricket star Sagar Bhandari. Scorpions were making slow progress and were 49 for 2 from 7 overs. Shailesh Kanchan was bowled the following over by Nilantha Kumara - the Malinga of Friends Kuwait - for 25 runs. By the halfway mark, Scorpions were 54 for 3 with Johnson and Nadeem on the crease. Nadeem scored 33 from just 18 balls with 3 huge sixes and got out in Gayasinghe Nihals over. Raess Majeeds quick 24 with 2 sixes helps Scorpions to reach a total of 123 for 7 wickets.
Friends Kuwaits start was equally ignominious with Gayasinghe Nihal being caught by Shailesh in Hasan Kazis over. By the end of the 8th over, Friends Kuwait were 58 for 2, with Mohammed Sadik on 33 and icon player Rajesh Poojary on 5. Poojary was dismissed in the next over for the same score, being caught by Sharath in the bowling of SagarBandari. The turning point of the match was Umer Khans out in Raees Majeeds over, Umer Khan clean bowled by Raees for 1 run. After Umer Khans dismissal of Sadik played aggressively and scored 19 runs from Sagars over but at the other end wickets was falling. At the end Sadik got run out while trying for second run, and he scored 65 runs with 5 huge sixes. In the last over Friends Kuwait all out for 104 and Scorpions won by 19 runs.
Raees Majeed of Scorpions got Man of the Final award for his allrounder performance with 24 runs and 3 wickets. Nithin Saldanha of Desert Bulls got Man of the Series award of an Air ticket from Eternity Tours and Travels. All the Top 10 Bowlers and Batsmans got award and distributed by the Guests.
Q7 Mobile partners Hawas, Noushad, Grand hyper Regional manager AyyoobKechery, Mohammed Kunhi, Eternity Travels Branch in charge Jerry George, Winners Int’l Director Faisal M ahmad were attend the prize distribution. The KPL committee members Sameeulla, Niyas and Shabeer handed over the mementos for the guests and Shuaib controlled the prize distribution event.