Multan Sultan crossed all hurdles brilliantly and reached the finals of Pakistan Super League (PSL) by thrashing defending champs Lahore Qalandars last night at Gaddafi Stadium.

Sultans defeated the nearly invincible Qalandars by 84 runs. Chasing a target of 161 runs, Lahore was routed at only 76 runs in 14.3 overs.

Lahore lost Mirza Tahir Baig, who scored only 8 runs, early after Sheldon Cottrell bowled an out swinger who edged one through to Rizwan.

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Cottrell struck in the same over to trap Abdullah Shafique on a duck in front of the stumps.

Lahore were hoping that opener and star batter Fakhar Zaman would lead the run-chase but that was not the case after the left-hander was clean-bowled by an inswinger from Anwar Ali. He scored six runs in seven balls.

Earlier Multan Sultans choose to bat first and set a not so difficult target in PSL 8 season where usually the target is 250 above, putting up 161 in their 20 overs by giving 5 wickets.
Multan made a decent start in the powerplay with 46 runs on the board without losing a wicket.

Lahore got their first breakthrough in the eighth over after Haris Rauf cleaned up Usman Khan, who scored 29 runs in 28 balls. He added 53 runs for the first wicket with skipper Mohammad Rizwan.

Lahore’s good bowling ensured that the middle orders were dominated by the Qalandars.

However, missed chances in the death overs allowed Kieron Pollard to take the attack to the bowling side, adding 57 runs in 34 balls with the help of six maximums and a four.

Tim David remained unbeaten on 22 runs in 15 balls.

Rauf was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3-34 in four overs. Meanwhile, Zaman and Rashid bagged one wicket each.

David Wiese also bowled an economical spell of 0-24 in four overs.

While Multan qualified for the final, Lahore will now play the second eliminator against the winning team of the first eliminator.

Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi will meet in the first eliminator on Thursday and the team that loses will get knocked out of the event. The winner will face Lahore on Friday.

Playing 11
Lahore Qalandars: Fakhar Zaman, Mirza Tahir Baig, Abdullah Shafique, Sam Billings (wk), Hussain Talat, Sikandar Raza, David Wiese, Rashid Khan, Shaheen Afridi (c), Haris Rauf, Zaman Khan.

Multan Sultans: Mohammad Rizwan (wk/c), Usman Khan, Rilee Rossouw, Kieron Pollard, Tim David, Khushdil Shah, Anwar Ali, Usama Mir, Abbas Afridi, Sheldon Cottrell, Ihsanullah.