PSL 2018 – Match 22: Multan Sultans vs Karachi Kings

1. After Lahore beat Multan Sultans yesterday and registered their first win Multan were looking to make a comeback in today’s match against Karachi Kings however, Shahid Afridi heroic bowling prevented them from getting a win and the Sultans were pushed to 3^rd position down the PSL ranking table.
2. The toss was won by Multan Sultans and they elected to field first. Simmons and Denly got set on the crease and the match started. Denly got off to a flying start however, Lendl Simmons consumed 13 balls and could only manage a single digit score.
3. Denly was joined by the prolific young batsmen Babar Azam on the crease. Both batsmen went on to score fifties while also setting up Karachi for a good total by sharing a partnership of 118 between them. After these two got out Colin Ingram finished thing off for Karachi by scoring 29* in 8 balls greatly supported by Ravi Bopara from the other end.
4. Multan has always found their strength in their bowlers but today they were pretty average and except for Mohammad Irfan no bowler was pretty impressive with the ball. Viljoen who took two wickets of Denly and Babar Azam was also very expensive and gave 49 runs in his 4 overs and Multan were given a target of 189 in 20 overs.
5. 189 is a good target but considering Multan’s batting stability they could have chased down this score quite easily, however Karachi’s bowlers, unlike Multan’s were quite impressive on the field.
6. The 2^nd innings went underway and Kumar Sangakkara and Ahmed Shehzad took strike on the crease. Both played by keeping the run rate in check and shared a 41 run partnership before Sangakkara became a victim of Irfan’s tight bowling. Sohaib Maqsood and Shehzad looked to rebuild but fell quickly to Imad and Usman respectively.
7. The well composed Shoaib Malik and the hard hitter Pollard were on the crease; both fully capable of guiding Multan to victory, however the fans were in for an Afridi Specialas the superstar uprooted the stumps of Pollard, SaifBadar and Malik in successive overs and practically gave the win to his team on a silver platter.
8. Some resistance was shown by the lower order especially Sohail Tanvir, who scored a 29 ball 34* but it all resulted in nothing at the end as Karachi won their fourth match in the PSL and are now stand 2^nd in the rankings table just below Islamabad United who top the table by 10 points.
9. The main difference between the teams was their bowling and that boiled down to the Sultans getting their first humiliating loss in this PSL.

JL Denly

Babar Azam

CA Ingram

RS Bopara

Shahid Afridi

Mohammad Rizwan

Imad Wasim (c)

Mohammad Irfan

Mohammad Amir

Usman Khan

Ahmed Shehzad

Sohaib Maqsood

Shoaib Malik (c)

KA Pollard

SaifBadar

GC Viljoen

Sohail Tanvir

Imran Tahir

Junaid Khan

Mohammad Irfan

For updates regularly visit: Allsportspk