Palestine takes advantage of India's sloppy play, wins West Asia Cup opener 6-1
Palestine’s Brent Powers and India’s Akshay Balasaheb More were headed for an old fashioned pitchers’ duel, but More’s defense let him down and Powers shut down India’s offense.
Powers’ dominant performance put Palestine in the driver seat to begin the West Asia Baseball Cup and allowed the team to save their pitching rotation for the rest of group play. Powers only allowed 2 hits and struck out 15 batters during 9 innings of work.
India’s offense was stifled, so their defense had zero room for mistakes Thursday morning in Karaj, Iran. During the bottom of the third inning their defense made 2 errors that led to 2 Palestine runs.
Outfielder Yunis Halim started the two-out rally in the third inning with a single and advanced to second on India’s first error of the game. (They would make four errors total en route to their loss to Palestine.) Tripp Haddad drove Halim in with a single of his own and scored later in the inning on India’s second throwing error.
New addition Hasan Ammar scored the third run of the game in the fifth inning on a wild pitch. The outfielder went 2 for 4 in his debut for Palestine.
Rumsey Yasin had the most impressive day at the plate. The veteran first baseman went 3 for 4 to start the tournament. He reached base in all four plate appearances. Even though he reached on an error in the bottom of the 8th, two runs scored because he put the ball in play.
That error set up Adam Musa, pitcher and outfielder, for a rbi pinch-hit triple to put an exclamation point on Palestine’s first win of the tournament.
Palestine did its job and won its first game, but the offense needs to improve to defeat teams like Sri Lanka and Pakistan—the last two teams to win the West Asia Cup, respectively. The guys in the line up are capable of scoring a lot of runs and I’m predicting they will against Afghanistan on Friday.
The team is also hoping Ibrahim Shalabi can bounce back from an injury he sustained early in today’s game, but even if he’s available I don’t imagine the team will rush him back. The pitcher and infielder is one of a few dynamic players on Palestine’s roster they will need to play well in a theoretical championship game against Pakistan. Guys like Halim, Musa and Shalabi can pitch, field and hit making them valuable assets to their current manager Oney Guillen.
After Afghanistan, Palestine will play its toughest opponent of the group stage, Sri Lanka, who it has beaten both times they’ve met on a diamond.
