ACC claimed the Dutch T20 Championship title for the second year running, besting Dosti-United in the final at VRA on Saturday.
ACC won through in a low-scoring final in blustery and changeable conditions, restricting Dosti to 106-9 and chasing down the runs with five balls and four wickets to spare. Skipper Usman Malik did the early damage for ACC, with three wickets and a run-out in his opening spell as Dosti stumbled to 32-4 in the first 7 overs.
Mudassar Bukhari and Sherry Butt fought back with a 35-run partnership for the 5th wicket, but Butt was the only batsman to keep Bukhari company for long, and when he was caught off Ahmed Zulfiqar for 20 in the 13th ACC came back hard. Bukhari would carry the bat for 48, but no other Dosti batsman managed double figures and with 105 on the board at the break ACC were well on top.
The chase was far from plain sailing however, with four wickets going down in the first seven overs ACC were soon behind the pace at 28-4. JP de Villiers led the counter-attack for ACC however, building partnerships with Asad and Saqib Zulfiqar as ACC took charge of the chase.
Two towering straight sixes off Ahsan Malik and Mahesh Hans put ACC back ahead of the rate, and good running kept them there throughout. De Villiers would fall with the end in sight, chopping Malik onto his stumps with 3 runs still needed from 10 balls, but his 34-ball 40 had taken the game out of Dosti's hands. Saqib Zulfiqar calmly closed out the win and claimed the title for ACC.
Earlier in the day ACC had seen off Excelsior '20 comfortably in the first semi-final, Rehmat Zulfiqar's 66 seeing them to a total of 156-6 before Ahmed Zulfiqar and JP de Villiers bundled the Sciedammers out for 80, finishing with figures of 3-11 and 3-5 respectively.
Dosti had likewise made short work of HCC, Jonathan Vandiar's 32 not out the only significant contribution to HCC's total as Mohammad Hafeez claimed 4-19 to restict them to a chaseable 123, whilst Rahil Ahmed's unbeaten 58 ensured Dosti would chase down the runs with 14 balls to spare.