United played better than us: Sultans coach

KARACHI: Multan Sultans’ coach Abdul Rehman lauded Islamabad United for overcoming them in the heart-stopping HBL PSL 2024 final but stressed that they played good cricket during the event and will look to address the loopholes in the next season.

Mohammad Rizwan-led Sultans have played four successive PSL finals - winning only in 2021 - while the last two have been last-ball thrillers. “We are proud that we made it to the final for the fourth successive time. Credit goes to United. We played well right throughout the tournament. Getting it to the last ball shows that the match was amazing,” Rehman stated while addressing the post-match presser.

The National Bank Stadium’s pitch, which looked good for batting in the Eliminator 2, again turned out to be slow and turning as a 160-run target proved very difficult for United’s power-packed batting.

“The pitch wasn’t high-scoring. It was slow and turning. We have scored the most runs from the lower order. Iftikhar Ahmed once again proved he is an amazing player as he scored quick runs; 159 was a fighting total. We played well, but United played better than us,” he said.

The Sultans have lost the third consecutive PSL finals, and there has been debate about them being ‘’chokers’’ on the big day. “I don’t believe there is anything that we can be called chokers. Even when we lost, we didn’t go without putting up a fight. Overall, we played good cricket. Inshahallh, we will try to fix the issues,” Rehman said.