PSL 2022 | Peshawar Zalmi swat away under-strength Islamabad United

Peshawar Zalmi blew away Islamabad United on Thursday, 17 February, in an absolute whirlwind of a game in the Pakistan Super League 2022. A match dominated by two batting performances saw 26 sixes hit on the day, with balls flying all over the park.

However, Zalmi managed to eke out a 10-run win to strengthen their position in the top four.

Led by the young Mohammad Haris Peshawar posted 206 runs while batting first and returned to check the Islamabad total for 196 runs for the loss of 7 wickets, winning the game by a decent margin.

Many injuries for Islamabad

To be fair to Islamabad, they had five changes made to their squad, owing to the unavailability of key players who had either been injured or pulled out of the tournament. But they showed enough courage to stay in the game for 15 overs of their chase till the time pressure became too much for them.

Chasing a huge score without their marquee openers was always going to be troublesome but a little luck mixed with top hitting put Islamabad on the front foot inside the powerplay. Zalmi’s strategy of starting with two leg spinners in Usman Qadir and Liam Livingstone blew up straight in their face after the duo conceded 37 off the first two overs and dropped a catch of Rahmanullah Gurbaz.

The Afghan international’s clean hitting gave Islamabad impetus and helped them reach 50 in the first 4 overs before he got out on 46 off 19 balls.

While the openers could not carry on for much longer, Gurbaz had done enough to establish a base in a ‘hit-or-die’ game.

The Azam Khan show

With the required rate already over 10, Azam Khan walked into the pitch even before the powerplay ended. He took control of the innings timing the ball superbly well and by the halfway mark of the innings reached 98 runs.

Islamabad believed.

The middle overs brought a phase of play when Azam Khan did not really time the ball well but he really could not be bothered about it.

Legendary Moeen Khan’s son kept muscling the ball over the fielders managing to score 85 off just 45 balls. When he got out in the first ball of the 19th over Islamabad needed just 25 off the last two overs, fairly achievable by the modern standards of T20 cricket.

But the passing of Khan meant that the final nail in the coffin had been put into the coffin of the Islamabad chase, and the injury laden team did not have enough batting reserves to pull through at that time.

They lost the game by 10-runs but surely won a lot of hearts for the courage they showed on the day.

Salman Irshad and Wahab Riaz were the pick among the bowlers for Zalmi and picked key wickets in Gurbaz and Azam Khan respectively in tight moments of the game.

20-year-old lights up the stadium

Earlier in the innings, Haris attacked Islamabad bowlers from the ball go and raked up 30 in the first couple of overs. With no Shadab Khan in the line-up, Islamabad found it difficult to control the batter Haris pummelled the fast bowlers to score his half century inside the powerplay.

At the time, it really did not matter that his partner Hazratullah Zazai was struggling to time the ball and got out in the final ball of the powerplay for 13 runs. Mohammad Haris continued on after Zazai’s departure and alongside Yasir Khan put up another quick partnership of 40 off 24 balls.

This incessant attack led to Zalmi crossing the 100-run mark in the 8th over, taking the Zalmi bowlers completely out of the attack. At the time when Haris got out, he had scored an individual 70 off 32 balls with the team up at 113 inside the 10th over.

From there, it was just about the rest of the players continuing the moment, and they did, scoring at the excess of 140 SR. 

While the innings were definitely not as good as Haris, they did enough to take Zalmi way over the line.

The win sets up Zalmi well to strengthen their position in the top 4 in the late stages of the league.