Chitral-born Muhammad Rasool became joint leading scorer while the number of goal-getters in Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL) became 106, when Farhan Qadir, Muhammad Khabab, Muhammad Ahmed and Amin Ullah entered the record book with their first goals, as three more matches were decided on Thursday.
KRL thrashed PTV 5-0, while Army beat Navy 3-2. KPT lost valuable point when they were held to draw by tight marking Afghan Football Club 1-1. The thrilling all-services tie between Army and Navy yielded four goals in first half with the soldiers making remarkable comeback after 0-2 down.
After first half an hour, four goals entered the cage within 13 minutes. Navy's Karachi-born striker Farhan Qadir opened the scoring in the 32nd minute after fine work by midfielder Shabbir Hussain and eight minutes later opportunist striker Asif Mehmood made it 2-0 with headed goal off Nasir Hussain's corner. But the seamen failed to hold onto the tremendous start and lost both the goals.
Winger Sharjeel Vicky pulled one back in the 43rd minute when he rose above every body to head Imran Hussain's corner into net and Haroonabad-born Khabab also utilised a corner, coming from Michael Masih, to level the issue with his first goal of the show.
It was 2-2 at interval. Army showed how valuable are the corners in modern soccer, taking advantage of another corner. Shabbir went up for the set piece and steered the ball in after skipper Babar Mehmood turned the corner in the 61st minute to make it 3-2.
Muhammad Rasool showed his class when KRL trounced PTV 5-0. Due to his hat trick, Rasool raised his tally to 12 as that of Shakir Lashari (PIA). Olympian Abid Khan opened the floodgate when he took advantage of Zia Us Salam's pass in the 20th minute.
Rasool dominated in second half with three sparkling goals. He made it 2-0 in the 60th minute after skipper Muhammad Essa cut the ball back from by-line and ten minutes later he raced alone, hood-winked three defenders to make it 3-0.
Lahore-born Muhammad Ahmed made it 4-0 in the 83rd minute off Zubair's defence-splitter: 300th goal of the event. Rasool fired hat-trick two minutes later when former KRL skipper and central defender Saeed disturbed PTV's defence with fierce low angular ball inside the area.
League-Leader KPT went ahead in the 19th minute when striker Shahid Salim finished the job after winger Zafar Majeed opened the gate for him to fire the ball in. KPT led 1-0 at interval but two minutes after resumption; Amin Ullah dislodged the defence of shaky keeper Abdul Ghani with his first goal of the 182-match show.