Newfoundland Labrador made their debut in this year’s tournament playing PEI. PEI won the toss and put NL in to bat. PEI had early success with the ball dismissing both NL openers (Hummam and Rakesh Negi) with 13 on the board. Captain Rahul Vashisht is in great form in the local leagues, and immediately showed he could reproduce it at provincial level. He and Gurman Khurana took 25 off the fourth over, and he hit 22 off his own bat in the 6th, reaching his fifty in only 20 balls. The partnership reached 85 before Gurman was caught, but the hundred came up in the 11th over. Vashisht was bowled for a brilliant 93, made out of 119 while he was at the wicket from 47 balls, 12 fours and four sixes. Asim Ramzan contributed a quick 10, Adeel 14; and Umair Khan (31) and Bharat Shetty (19*) batted well in the closing overs to take NL to 207/6 from their twenty overs.
Asim Ramzan took the wicket of Sandhu, who earlier in the day had made 54 against Nova Scotia, with his 3rd ball, and then Rahul after conceding a boundary off his first ball bowled Shergill with his second. Asim had Chandi leg before, and then bowled Khalid Shahjad for his third wicket. Three wickets fell in four balls as Rahul took two more wickets to reduce PEI to 29/6. After PEI staged a recovery, Osama Saeed, like Asim, took a wicket in his first over of interprovincial play, a catch by Bharath in the deep – 45/7. PEI finally were bowled out for 122, Rahul Vashisht finishing with 4/26, Asim 3/12.
Because of rain forecast for late Saturday, Cricket NL had to play again right after the PEI match. They lost to New Brunswick by 65 runs. New Brunswick batted first, making 165, thanks to a big mid-innings partnership. Ali Malik led the bowlers with 3/26, with wickets for Asim, Dhrumitt Bhatt and Adeel Ilyas. NL got off to a good start chasing, at 46/1 after 3.4 overs but after Rakesh (21) and Rahul (32 from 15 balls) were both caught, the batsmen struggled. Adeel made 13 and Dhrumitt 10, but NL were bowled out for 100 in 15 overs.
