Stars and Conquerors reached the National Women’s One-Day Tournament final with six wins each and one round to go.
On the conclusion of the ninth round on Monday, the Invincibles are placed third with three wins, and a triumph in the last round will do them no good.
The tenth round of the tournament will take place at the same venues on Wednesday, December 3, with four teams set to be in action, except Stars, who have played their eight league matches.
At the Iqbal Stadium, Omaima Sohail brought the third century of the tournament to hand Stars a 69-run triumph over Invincibles.
Omaima struck 127 off 131 balls, hitting 14 fours, and in tandem with Sidra Amin (93), she put on a mammoth 163-run stand for the second wicket. Earlier, Omaima had gathered 64 runs with her fellow opening batter Warda Yousaf (20).
Kaynat Hafeez chipped in with a 14-ball 20, hitting two fours as Stars posted 287-5 in 50 overs. In reply, Invincibles were bundled out for 218 in 47.5 overs with Natalia Parvaiz (84) and Hafsa Khalid (65) hitting half-centuries. The duo got together at 54-2 before putting on 100 runs to put Stars on the alert before Hafsa was run out.
Stars made the most of the opportunity and staged a comeback, taking eight for 64 to hand Invincibles their fourth loss in the tournament.
Conquerors bagged their sixth win of the tournament as they overhauled the 165-run target set by Strikers in 29.5 overs at the HPC Ground, Faisalabad.
Opting to bat first, Strikers got off to a good start on the back of a 101-run second-wicket stand between Shawaal Zulfiqar (84) and Noreen Yaqoob (15) before Conquerors made their way back into the game.
Following Shawaal’s departure after a brisk half-century, Strikers slipped from 151-3 to 164 all out. Conquerors’ Umm-e-Hani returned figures of 10-1-31-4, while Saima Malik and Ayesha Bilal dismissed two batters each.
In turn, the Conquerors were helped home with an 89-run opening stand by their prolific pair of Gull Feroza (66) and Saira Jabeen (36). Strikers then took four wickets for 30 runs, with Ghulam Fatima taking two, Nashra Sundhu and Rabia Rani taking one each, to leave Conquerors 119-4.
Iram Javed (41) and Hani (10) then stitched an unbeaten 48-run stand to finish the game.
