Shukla leads Oman demolition as Hong Kong get their first points

Run-scoring has been tough so far in Nisshin, and the trend continued into the third match of the Asian Games men's cricket competition, with Hong Kong never managing to get going and putting up what would appear a below-par 121, but even that was 41 runs too many for Oman. The top individual score for the match was 33, and an offspinner and a medium-pace bowler picked up three wickets apiece.

Batting first out of choice on Friday, Hong Kong were set back early by Sufyan Mehmood, the quick bowler, and Shuaib Al Balushi, the offspinner, who sent back the experienced Nizakat Khan and Anshy Rath respectively within the third over.

But Babar Hayat, with well over 100 T20I appearances to his name, and newbie Hafeez Khan stitched together the best partnership of the game for the third wicket: 51 in 47 balls.

Both of them fell between the 11th and 14th overs, Hafeez scoring 33 in 37 balls and Hayat 23 in 25, and there was another stutter, triggered by Mohammed Al Balushi's three-for, but a solid eighth-wicket partnership of 25 from 17 balls between Yasim Murtaza (18* in 14) and Ehsan Khan (16 in ten) dragged Hong Kong past the six-an-over mark when their overs ran out.

In the Oman reply, Shuaib Al Balushi held one end up, but four wickets had fallen at the other end before the end of the fifth over, Ayush Shukla accounting for three of those to, at that stage, have figures of 3 for 13 from three overs.

Shukla didn't get another wicket, but none of the other bowlers gave much away. The most expensive was Ehsan, who went at five an over, while left-arm spinner Murtaza and legspinner Mohammad Ghazanfar had combined returns of 2 for 19 from their eight overs. And the chase was dead in the water by the time the halfway point of the innings came, with Shuaib Al Balushi also having fallen by then for 20 in 26 balls.

The last Oman wicket fell in the 12th over, but despite having enough overs to play with, they completely failed to negotiate the conditions, captain Mehmood top-scoring with 26, but taking 35 balls for it. Not a single Oman batter scored at over a-run-a-ball - the quickest of the lot was Shuaib Al Balushi, who scored at 76.92.

The win put Hong Kong at No. 2 on the Group B points table but Oman have a chance of catching up with them on points if they beat Malaysia, who had beaten Hong Kong in an earlier game.