Qalandars finally taste victory

LAHORE: Lahore Qalandars banking on Ben Dunk’s record breaking performance finally won its first match of the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2020 here at Gaddafi Stadium on Tuesday night.

The 16th match cheered and enjoyed to the fullest by nearly capacity crowd witnessed Quetta Gladiators slipping to its second defeat of the current season after they lost to Multan Sultans at Multan Stadium last week. Qalandars that surpassed their PSL highest by scoring 209 for five, reduced Gladiators to 172 for all in 20 overs, staying alive in the tournament with 37 runs win. Qalandar’s previous highest was 204 it scored against Multan in PSL 2019.

After dunk’s batting guiles, Samit Patel came with an all-round performance taking the wickets of Jason Roy and Sarfraz Ahmed while Dilber Hussain dented Gladiators by sending their key players back including Shane Watson. Later Salman Irshad and Muhammad Faizan completed the script of win.

Gladiators were in desperate need of a partnership which the Qalandars attack did not allow. Their upper order comprising Roy (12), Watson (23), Ahsan Ali (2) and Sarfaraz Ahmed (9) were not contained but squeezed. Whereas the remaining batsmen that came to the crease were Azam Khan (12), Mohammad Nawaz (24), Ben Cutting (53) who was the highest Gladiators’ scorer, Anwar Ali (4), Fawad Ahmed (13), Naseem Shah (7) and Mohammad Hasnain (1*). They lost their wickets on frequent intervals. With the exception of Cutting, who faced 25 balls to reach his half century which was laced with eight boundaries, including five sixes.

Salman was the pick of bowlers with four wickets while Faizan had three and Patel and Dilbar shared two wickets each.

Just 1.4 overs into the Quetta innings, one of the floodlight towers failed to disrupt the match for nearly 15 minutes.

Dunk and Patel came to Lahore Qalandar’s rescue after it saw three of its batters sent back for 50 runs. Fakhar Zaman and Chris Lynn mustered 36 runs for the opening wickets. But the out of form opener Fakhar (15) became the victim of Muhammad Nawaz but Lynn (27) maintained the runs flow. He was fortunate to have Dunk come in to extend support. Lynn got unlucky when an edge to keeper forced him head back. Dunk saw Mohammad Hafeez going for a duck. From there on Dunk and Patel acted as retrievers as they extracted runs with big hits.

Dunk was the architect of Qalandar’s massive blows to Gladiators. Manufacturing 93, Dunk not only broke the record of most sixes in a single innings in PSL but also guided Qalandars to their highest score in PSL.

Dunk smashed 10 sixes, four of them in one over of Nawaz which yielded 27 runs. He also had to his name three fours. He also shared a 155 runs partnership with Samit Patel. The two stayed at the crease for 12.1 overs with the latter departing first at 71 after completing his second T20 half century that came in 31 balls while overall he faced 40 balls in his entire innings.

Dunk remained put at the crease but fell seven runs short of his first century. He faced 42 balls before getting caught at deep backward point by Ahsan Ali off Ben Cutting.

In his highest T20 score, Dunk broke the record of eight sixes shared by five different batsmen: Umar Akmal, Sharjeel Khan, Kevin Pietersen, Kamran Akmal and Colin Ingram. Dunk eventually ended up hitting 10 sixes. His 93-run blitz ended on the final ball off the innings.

Earlier, Quetta Gladiators won the toss and put Lahore Qalandars in to bat. Sarfaraz Ahmed made one change to the side, with Fawad Ahmed coming in to replace Sohail Khan.

Lahore, who were yet to win, would have found their paths to qualification closing rapidly with a fourth defeat. Qalandar captain Sohail Akhtar made three changes to the side. Injury to David Weise meant Sekkugge Prasanna came into the side, while Maaz Khan, who had a tough game against Peshawar Zalmi, made way for Mohammad Faizan. Dane Vilas sat out, with the keeping duties falling to Ben Dunk, who came into the eleven.

Brief scores: Lahore Qalandars 209/5 (Ben Dunk 93, samit Patel 71, Quetta Gladiators 172 all out. Ben Cutting 53, Salman Irshad 4/29).