KL gunning for Premier sweep

KUALA Lumpur retained the Malaysian Cricket Premier League title with a match to spare yesterday as they turn their attention to completing a second straight double by winning the knockout Premier Cup next weekend.

Back-to-back wins against Selangor over the weekend ensured KL extended their winning run to 15 consecutive matches spanning last season and this year.

KL face bottom-side Armed Forces on Wednesday in their final Premier League fixture, which is largely academic, before taking on fourth-placed Penang in the Premier Cup semi-finals on Friday.

“We want to make sure we go through the season undefeated so we won’t be taking Forces lightly,” said KL stand-in team manager Bala Nair.

“After that we will be targeting the Premier Cup and if we play as we normally do, I think we should win it.”

With the core of the national team lining up for KL, the city side faced little difficulty in beating Selangor by 18 runs (Duckworth-Lewis method) and eight wickets on Saturday and yesterday respectively.

National team captain Ahmad Faiz Mohammad Nor (67) and Virandeep Singh (40) put on an unbeaten stand of 102 runs for the third wicket to steer KL to 120 for 2 in reply to Selangor’s 115 all out, with Neville Liyanage taking five