KARACHI: Hyderabad were forced to follow on by Lahore Shalimar, as they were dismissed for a poor 122 runs in their first innings, on the second day of their second-round, Pool B 2008-09 National Inter-Region Under-19 Three-day Cricket Championship match, at the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday.

But they sprung right back into the game as, facing a deficit of 218 runs, they rattled up a score of 186 in their second innings for the loss of just one wicket. This included an unbeaten 102 by their captain Azeem Ghumman while the other two batsmen also got among the runs.

Hyderabad earlier faced a big Lahore Shalimar total of 340 runs. At the draw of stumps, they were only 32 runs short of making the Lahore team bat again with nine wickets still intact.

Azeem, who generally comes in at number three, opened the second innings batting with Bilal Irshad and the two proceeded to give Hyderabad a 119-run start, Bilal’s 40 came off 74 balls with four fours.

Azeem then added 67 runs for the unbroken second-wicket partnership with Noor Din, who has made 35 not out off 59 balls with five fours. Azeem has hit 13 boundaries in his 120-ball knock that’s come in just over two and a half hours.

In another Pool B match at Bugti Stadium Quetta, Rawalpindi took a 181 runs first innings lead over Quetta, after scoring 297 in reply to the latter’s small score of 116. By the close of play, Quetta had faced only one delivery in their second innings when bad light caused the day to come to an end.

The Rawalpindi batsmen played sensibly, with opener Umair Azam top-scoring with 74 runs off 104 balls that included 12 fours. Skipper Muzammil Nizam hit 59 off only 39 balls with eight fours and two sixes.

Quetta’s right-arm medium-fast Dad Mohammad captured four wickets for 61 runs in 10 runs.

Scores: Lahore Shalimar 340 in 80.2 overs (Farooq Saleem 66, Najaf Latif 92, Muzammil Ikram 66; Azeem Ghumman 5-72). Hyderabad 122 in 32.4 overs (Mohammad Shehroz 33; Najaf Latif 3-15) and, after following on, Hyderabad 186-1 in 41 overs (Bilal Irshad 40, Azeem Ghumman 102*, Noor Din 35*).

Quetta 116 in 61 overs (Nadir Khan 41; Faisal Iqbal 3-12) and 0-0 in 0.1 overs. Rawalpindi 297 in 60 overs (Umair Azam 74, Muzammil Nizam 59, Nasir Malik 31; Dad Mohammad 4-61).