Contemporary Fit Record – Sultans vs Qalandars Qualifier 2022/23

Chasing a complete down in opposition to the Qalandars’ bowling lineup has transform essentially the most daunting problem within the PSL, and the Sultans have been good sufficient to be versatile. They gained the toss and batted first for the primary time this season, and simply the 5th time of their historical past. However they have a tendency to pick out those moments neatly; they gained 3 of the former 4.

That victory appeared anything else however confident for a lot of the primary innings, with the Qalandars at their imperious best possible with the ball, stifling the Sultans within the first 15 overs. The common first innings ranking this season right here used to be 193, however it become glaring moderately quickly the Sultans would not get anyplace close to that. They controlled simply 46 within the powerplay, and whilst the Qalandars hadn’t picked up any wickets, it did not appear as though they had to.

Haris Rauf, at his fearsome quickest, struck the primary blow, even though the ball he wiped clean Usman Khan up with used to be a slower one. Zaman Khan removed a scratchy Rilee Rossouw affordably, an enormous wicket, specifically given Rossouw’s imperious report in opposition to the Qalandars. Rashid Khan prised Mohammad Rizwan out with a flawed’un to cut back the Sultans to 90 for 3, and Qalandars handiest tightened their grip at the sport.

It used to be a sensational decrease order counterattack from Pollard that dug his aspect out of a hollow, even though it wasn’t with out its possibilities. Sam Billings dropped a skier moderately early on within the onslaught, with Shaheen Afridi and Hussain Talat lacking possibilities to do away with him. Within the period in-between, he used to be grinding during the gears, pushing up the Sultans general to a defensible degree, by no means extra so than when he powered 3 sixes off Shaheen within the penultimate over; the 20 the Qalandars captain conceded made it his most expensive PSL over. It additionally introduced up a 33-ball 50 for Pollard, profitable him the Participant-of-the-Fit award.

Haris hit again with a scintillating ultimate six balls, hitting speeds in far more than 150 frequently and cleansing up each Pollard and Khushdil Shah. It noticed simply six runs scored and clawed a little bit of momentum to the Qalandars manner, turning the duty over to the batters.

However Cottrell, newly arrived on the PSL, wrenched the sport out of the Qalandars palms sooner than they would even had the chance to get the chase off the bottom. A double-strike in his 2d over, making prodigious use of inswing to the right-handers, put paid to each Mirza Baig and Abdullah Shafique, whilst Anwar Ali from the opposite finish seamed one superbly to knock again the highest of Fakhar Zaman’s off stump. Cottrell wasn’t carried out with the ambush but, returning to dispatch Shaheen with a wild swing off the second one ball he confronted discovering Usman Khan at duvet.

There used to be extra trauma about to be inflicted on a shell-shocked Qalandars. Pollard, their tormentor in leader with the bat, noticed two wickets fall in his first over, sloppy operating catching Talat out sooner than a sensational operating catch from Abbas Afridi introduced the curtains down on Sikandar Raza.

Qalandars’ ideas have been already turning to Friday’s eliminator. Billings and Rashid fell in fast succession, sooner than a couple of lusty blows from David Wiese and Rauf gave a packed, partisan house crowd one thing to cheer for. It used to be to be ephemeral, on the other hand, with Abbas Afridi turning in the knockout blow as Haris feathered one via to the keeper.

Sultans have been thrashed in remaining yr’s PSL ultimate by means of this very opposition. Nowadays, they took a big step in opposition to making sure they won’t even wish to meet them at that degree another time.