Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchise Lahore Qalandars saw another victory on Sunday against Quetta Gladiators. The Qalandars beat Gladiators by eight wickets with the help of opening batter Fakhar Zaman and one-down batter Kamran Ghulam’s half-centuries.
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Quetta failed to get a good start as Lahore’s skipper Shaheen Shah Afridi grabbed back-to-back wickets of batters Jason Roy and James Vince in the first over. They posted a total of 141, thanks to Iftikhar Ahmed’s half-century.
The recovery came initially through another little cameo from Umar Akmal, and then a 51-run stand between Iftikhar and Hassan Khan. Iftikhar scored a 39-ball 52 to ensure the Gladiators would have something to bowl at, but needed to bat through the innings to really give them a defendable total. Once he holed out in the 18th over, the innings deteriorated.
The Qalandars didn’t go hard in the powerplay, but only because they didn’t especially need to. Ghulam Mudassar removed Abdullah Shafique early but Fakhar’s sensational inning showed no mercy on the opposition’s bowling attack. The opener struck six boundaries during a 42-ball 53, and even when he top-edged one-off Noor Ahmed to end his knock, his side required just 24 more in 27 balls.
Then came Hafeez and clinched the match with Ghulam, who scored an unbeaten 55 on 39 balls.
Twitterati couldn’t stop lauding Fakhar’s consistent stint at this year’s PSl.
Former cricketer Rashid Latif took to Twitter and shared Fakhar’s picture and wrote: “Sar Fakhar se buland ho gaya.” (The head is raised with pride.)
While several showered praise sharing Fakhar’s stats in the seventh edition of PSL.
Fakhar has become only the second player in the history of PSL to score six fifty-plus scores in a single season, Babar Azam holds the record of seven in 2021. Fakhar stands on top of the table of players with 469 runs. Multan Sultans’ Shan Masood is behind him with 351 runs while Multan’s skipper Mohammad Rizwan is following Shan with 269 runs.
