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PSL 2022 | Lahore Qalandars vs Islamabad United | Match 27 Preview, Predictions, Fantasy XI

The caravan of the 7th season of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) rolls on, with Lahore Qalandars set to square off against Islamabad United at the Gaddafi Stadium on Saturday evening (February 19).


The race for the playoffs is heating up and with just two group games left for both sides, neither can afford a slip up.


Host Qalandars are at the second spot in the points table after having stitched 5 wins in eight fixtures. However, after losing the last game to bottom-placed Karachi Kings, they can't afford another blip.


Fakhar Zaman has been the spearhead for Lahore in their campaign thus far. The southpaw has churned out 50+ scores at a rapid rate at will. Lahore experienced the grim reality in an event of his rare failure in the last game as they failed to chase down a poultry 150, set by Karachi.


Zaman was dismissed by Hamza for a 5-ball 1, and even though the likes of Mohammad Hafeez, David Wiese and Harry Brooks played decent cameos, it was a blow from which Lahore could never really recover.


They will hope that it isn't the case in the upcoming fixture against Islamabad United, who are currently at the fourth spot with 4 wins and as many defeats after 8 games.


Islamabad's batting has been badly hamstrung due to injury to skipper Shadab Khan and the unavailability of the overseas duo of Paul Stirling and Alex Hales for different reasons.


They did, however, put up a brave fight in the last game with Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Azam Khan rising to the occasion during the run-chase of 207. 


While Gurbaz set the tone with a whirlwind 19-ball 46, the young stumped hammered an excellent 45-ball 85, an innings studded with 6 fours and 7 sixes.


However, barring these two, none of the other batsmen rose to the occasion, something skipper Asif Ali would like to take the lead in, as far as not repeating the same is concerned.


On the bowling front, Faheem Ashraf (3/33 in 4 overs) and Waqas Maqsood (2/34 in 4 overs).


This will be the second encounter of the season between these two teams and Qalandars would be chuffed at the fact that they won't face Shadab this time around.


Even though Lahore won the game by 8 runs, they were truly challenged by Shadab, who claimed 4/11 besides smashing a half-century.


Match Details - Lahore Qalandars vs Islamabad United, PSL 2022


Date: 19th February 2022


Time: 08:00 PM IST


Venue: Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore


Broadcast: Sony Six, Sony Six HD, SonyLiV app and website


Pitch Report:


The average 1st innings score in the last 9 completed night games at the Gaddafi Stadium is 178, with chasing teams winning just three of them. 


Squads:


Lahore Qalandars:


Shaheen Shah Afridi, Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Abdullah Shafique, Rashid Khan, David Wiese, Haris Rauf, Sohail Akhtar, Zeeshan Ashraf, Ahmed Daniyal, Phil Salt, Harry Brook, Kamran Ghulam, Dean Foxcroft, Zaman Khan, Maaz Khan, Samit Patel, Syed Faridoun


Islamabad United: 


Shadab Khan (c), Asif Ali, Azam Khan (wk), Athar Mahmood, Marchant de Lange, Danish Aziz, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Huraira, Mohammad Wasim, Mubasir Khan, Muhammad Akhlaq (wk), Muhammad Musa, Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Paul Stirling, Zafar Gohar, Zahir Khan, Zeeshan Zameer


Probable Playing XI:


Lahore Qalandars:


Fakhar Zaman, Abdullah Shafique, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hafeez, Phil Salt (WK), Harry Brook, David Wiese, Rashid Khan, Shaheen Afridi ©, Haris Rauf, Zaman Khan


Islamabad United:


Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Mubasir Khan, Danish Aziz, Liam Dawson, Azam Khan (WK), Asif Ali ©, Faheem Ashraf,  Waqas Maqsood, Muhammad Musa, Marchant de Lange, Zahir Khan.


CE Fantasy XI:


Fakhar Zaman ©,  Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Kamran Ghulam, Azam Khan (WK), Mohammad Hafeez, Asif Ali,  David Wiese, Faheem Ashraf, Rashid Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Waqas Maqsood


Captain: Fakhar Zaman

Vice-captain: Rahmanullah Gurbaz

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It has taken eight matches to break the jinx, but they finally have. Karachi Kings have won their first game in the 2022 edition of the Pakistan Super League on Friday, 18 February. Playing against the second-placed team on the table, Kings were assured of the victory three balls before the finish with Lahore needing 25 off the final three. Karachi have been off colour all season and looked off till the halfway point of the game, setting up a below par total against the mastery of Rashid Khan who took four wickets in the game, giving away just 16 runs. His spell of bowling included the wickets of Babar Azam, Qasim Akram, Imad Wasim and Chris Jordan, four dangerous men in the Karachi line-up. His brilliance of 4-1-16-4 meant that Karachi scored just 149 runs and once again failed to survive the 20 overs. However, that wasn’t the only four-wicket haul in the game as Karachi’s Mir Hamza dealt blows to Lahore throughout the innings, making sure that they did not control the game at any point of the second innings. The first one was the biggest fish of the day, Fakhar Zaman, who has been - by far - the best batter in the tournament. That snowballed into the removal of his opening partner Abdullah Shafiq in the fourth over - once again by Hamza and Lahore were pushed back despite the small total. The entire team struggled for timing and failed to score runs and the scoreboard pressure did the rest in the last two overs. Consistently losing wickets throughout the innings, Lahore had their last hopes out in the middle in the final three. Both David Wiese and Harry Brook were batting at 21 off 17 each. Needing 43 off the last three, they started off well getting 12 runs from the 18th over. But just when there seemed hope, both of them got out trying to hit Hamza out of the park. While Brook was caught in the deep, Weise was dismissed by a tight LBW call. And who else but Mir Hamza could have done it. The final over bore two wickets for Karachi and they were able to restrict Lahore to 127 winning the game by a margin of 22 runs. Mir Hamza was declared the man of the match for his 4-0-27-4. The loss would not be doing any harm to Lahore since Multan’s win in the day over Quetta made sure that Shaheen Afridi’s team already qualified to the top four. However, as they say in cricket that one loss in the run up to the final stages is always a good sign so that teams can figure out their problems. It was similar kind of day for Lahore’s batters and they would hope that they can fix their problems before the playoffs stages of the tournament.

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