Missed chances haunt Lahore as Rizwan-Maqsood guide Multan to first win of the season

The fairy tale of Mohammad Rizwan and his Midas touch continued as the skipper led Multan to their first-ever win in the sixth edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL). It was actually third time lucky for the Sultans as they had lost their last two games after dominating the proceedings for the most part of the match. Sultans were equally helped by some very clumsy fielding on the part of Qalandars who dropped both Rizwan and Sohaib Maqsood in crunch situations. 

The biggest change this time around for the team from South Punjab was that it won the toss and chose to field first, giving its batters the chance to win the game, instead of depending on the bowlers, who failed the team twice already. Chasing a modest total of 158, the Sultans didn’t start off well as Shaheen Afridi removed Chris Lynn with a ripper that broke the woodwork behind Lynn. Joined by the last match batting hero for Sultans, James Vince, Rizwan tried to build a partnership, but Vince got carried way, getting caught at the boundary of a Samit Patel delivery. 

But that was the last moment of joy for the Qlanadars in the game as Maqsood settled in with the skipper and added 110 for the fourth wicket to put Qalandars out of the game. Both the batsmen took all the Qlanadars bowlers for cleaners and were generously helped by the fielders of the likes of Fakhar Zaman who either did not attempt the catch or even if did, dropped sitters. He dropped Rizwan on 55 when Sultans were only 83/2. In the very next over, Maqsood too was dropped as Patel let down a sitter at the point on the bowling of Salman Mirza. 

Having been given these many chances, the two batsmen made sure that there were not many hurdles in the chase. When Rizwan finally got out of 76 from 49 balls, Multan needed only 18 runs and they cruised to the target under the guidance of Maqsood, who hit his first half-century of this season. The 33-year-old remained unbeaten on 61. 

Earlier in the day, being put to bat first after losing the toss, Lahore were rocked by twin strikes from Multan’s Shanawaz Dhani and Carlos Brathwaite. It took a lot of time for the Qalandars to make recovery. Mohammad Hafeez and Joe Denly built the innings and added 89 runs for the fourth wicket. At the time when they were together, Lahore threatened to cross the barrier of 170. 

Hafeez’s run-out changed the course of the Lahore innings as from 122-4 at 16.1, they ended up getting to only 157 in the 20 overs. While Hafeez top-scored for Qalandars, hitting consecutive half-centuries (60 off 35 in this innings), Dhani, the young man from Sindh along with Brathwaite picked two wickets each. 

For Qalandars, Shaheen Afridi picked two wickets to get to the top of the highest wicket-takers list. Mohammad Rizwan leads the highest run-getters charts with  188 runs in three innings.  With this win at the National Stadium in Karachi, Sultans have now got off the mark in the Points Table, while Lahore remain at the number one spot.