Opener Sohail Idrees struck a fine 154 Tuesday as Lahore Blues put ona big second innings total against Islamabad on the third day of theirQuaid-e-Azam Trophy match at the KRL Stadium

23-Jan-2002Opener Sohail Idrees struck a fine 154 Tuesday as Lahore Blues put ona big second innings total against Islamabad on the third day of theirQuaid-e-Azam Trophy match at the KRL Stadium.Lahore finished the day on 382 for eight and are likely to bat on forsometime Wednesday morning in order to give Islamabad a difficulttarget to chase on the last day. The home side has a first inningslead of 64.The Islamabad bowlers toiled on a pitch helping the batsmen andLahore’s Sohail made full use of the conditions to crack 15 fours anda six in his 239-ball innings. Along with his skipper Bazid Khan whoscored 88, he was involved in a 189-run partnership for the thirdwicket.Sohail’s marathon knock was finally ended by pacer Rauf Akbar, whofinished the day with five for 63. He also put the brakes on Bazidwhose 88 from 150 deliveries had nine fours. Ali Naqvi had three for98.Meanwhile controversy gripped the match when play ended as the Lahoremanager Hafeez-ur-Rehman complained to the referee Rizwan Khateeb thatone of the groundsmen had dug up a bit of the pitch as covers werebeing brought on. But in actual fact it was Lahore’s Humayun Farhatwho while batting did the damage in the danger area which led to hebeing ordered by umpire Sadiq Mohammad to have his spikes changed.The move of the Lahore manager of wrongly blaming the groundsman tocover up a wrong of one of his players upset the Islamabad officials.They felt that the damage done was intentional and calls for a highlevel probe. They even threatened not to bat Wednesday.