Shoaib Malik treats Lahore Lions to biryani at Sania Mirza’s house

Hyderabad: Biryani seems to be the centre of all attention during the Oppo CLT20 League matches in the land of Nizam. If MS Dhoni can change hotels for biryani, Shoaib Malik can organise a banquet.

The former Pakistan player’s bat did not do any talking, but his gestures did.Though his wife Sania Mirza was not in town, Malik invited the Lahore Lions – the Pakistan team in CLT20 – at his in-law’s house, treating them to Hyderabadi biryani and other delicacies.

Malik – padded up for the first time here since his marriage in 2010 – scored eight runs for Hobart Hurricanes and finished with bowling figures of 2-0-15-0 against Cape Cobras in a Champions League Twenty20 match. However, he said that the entire India and Pakistan pray for her success and he was happy with her recent achievements.

With the first match involving two foreign teams, there was no crowd at the 40,000-capacity Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium at Uppal here on a Sunday.

The Cobras-Hurricane tie saw less than 12,000 people in the stands. It increased to 18,000 later during the second match, between Kolkata Knight Riders and Lahore Lions, as the weekend crowd billed it as an Indo-Pak encounter.