PSL 6: Disdained Gladiators look for first win against buoyant Qalandars

After winning their opening encounter against the Peshawar Zalmi, the Qalandars have their next challenge waiting for them on the very next day. It is the Quetta Gladiators, who were humiliated by Karachi Kings in their previous encounter would face the Qalandar challenge at the National Stadium in Karachi.

Gladiators excepting their leader to stand up to the challenge

Sarfaraz Ahmed, the skipper of the Gladiators and the biggest leader and motivator in the side got out for just five runs and that too in a fashion, not usually associated with him. He made just 5 runs and his dismissal put off the entire team.

It is thus important that he along with senior players like Chris Gayle, Ben Cutting and Mohammad Nawaz need to take up the responsibility and make sure they give enough confidence to young guns like Tom Banton and their three quicks to play their natural game.

Qalandars look to polish their skills

The Lahore team played a great game, but their chase was jittery nonetheless. Senior pros like Sohail Akhtar, Fakhar Zaman and overseas imports like David Wiese and Samit Patel need to bring out their best. Hadn’t it been for a Rashid Khan special, the Qalandars might have been staring down the barrel. Thus in the early phase of the game, the men from Lahore would want their mistakes to be rectified.

Lahore Qalandars vs Quetta Gladiators: Match Details

Match Number- 04

Date and Time: 22nd February, 07:30 pm IST, 07:00 pm Local, 02:00 pm GMT

Venue- National Stadium, Karachi

Broadcast and Live stream: Sony Six and Sony LIV

Pitch Report

The pitch for this game would be a used pitch only. In the last three games played at Karachi, all of them have been low scoring ones only. But that is not because of the slowness of the wicket, rather because of some brilliant display of bowling. The wickets here have had true bounce, it’s the lack of application from batsmen and some very serious pace of change from bowlers that have made the contests low scoring.

Weather and Toss

Karachi would have clear night skies for the game with a lot of dew on display. The skipper winning the toss would go for a bowl first without any doubt.

Probable XIs

Lahore Qalandars

Fakhar Zaman, Sohail Akhtar (c), Agha Salman, Mohammad Hafeez, Ben Dunk (wk), Samit Patel, David Wiese, Rashid Khan, Ahmed Daniyal, Shaheen Afridi, Salman Mirza

Quetta Gladiators

Chris Gayle, Tom Banton, Saim Ayub, Sarfaraz Ahmed (c & wk), Azam Khan, Ben Cutting, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Hasnain, Usman Shinwari, Naseem Shah, Qais Ahmad

Dream XI / Fantasy XI

Chris Gayle, Tom Banton, Sohail Akhtar, Mohammad Hafeez (vc), Sarfaraz Ahmed (c & wk), Ben Cutting, Rashid Khan, Ahmed Daniyal, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Hasnain

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Saqib Mahmood’s brilliant spell in vain as Rashid, Shaheen guide Qalandars to victory

Shouldered by Rashid Khan's excellent cameo of 27 runs from 15 balls alongside senior statesman Mohammad Hafeez's composed innings, Lahore Qalandars went past Peshawar Zalmi in a jittery game to open their account in the sixth edition of the Pakistan Super League. Coming to bat after the fall of two quick wickets in a single Saqib Mahmood over, Khan, 22, didn’t waste too many deliveries to get going as he and Hafeez hit the opposition skipper Wahab Riaz for 14 runs in an over, at a time when the Qalandars required 22 to win from 18 balls. Before Wahab’s over, young quick Imran Khan too had conceded nine runs from his six balls to bring the required run rate down which had risen up after Saqib Mahmood's brilliant 16th over in which he removed Samit Patel and David Wiese with a breathtaking display of reverse swing. He gave away just a solitary single, pushing the required run rate to almost eight runs per over. The Lahore side then needed 31 from 24 deliveries. Earlier in the day, Qalandar’s skipper Sohail Akhtar won the toss and decided to bowl first. His decision was validated by Shaheen Afridi who removed Imam-Ul-Haq on the very first delivery of the match. It became difficult for Zalmi to recover from that attack as wickets fell at a regular interval. It was only after two overseas, Ravi Bopara and Sherafen Rutherford added 64 runs in 56 balls that Zalmi looked like getting to a competitive total. But soon Rutherford got out too and Bopara followed him after completing his 43 ball 50. Both were removed by Shaheen who took three wickets in the game and gave away just 14 runs in his four overs. He was adjudged Man of the Match for this brilliance performance of his. It was then that Amad Butt’s unbeaten effort of 23 runs from 11 balls helped his team get up to 140. Coming to chase 140, which was a tricky total for that wicket, especially with the strong bowling lineup of the Zalmi. Qalandars' start wasn’t ideal either. Afghan spinner Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman removed skipper Akhtar at a team score of 29. That started a phenomenon where wickets kept on falling as soon as it seemed like that Zalmi were out of the game. At 109-6 at the end of 16 overs, Qalandars were struggling to get past the target until Rashid Khan started to showcase the brilliance of his death overs hitting ably supported by Professor Hafeez. With this win at the National Stadium in Karachi, the Qalandars have now set their eyes firmly on their elusive title hunt, making a strong statement for other teams to beware.

IPL 2021: Rajasthan Royals part ways with head coach Andrew McDonald amid revamped leadership

The Rajasthan Royals have part ways from Andrew McDonald who had signed a three-year contract for the role of head coach of the franchise in the Indian Premier League in 2019. In a media release, the Royals said that both McDonald and the franchise have ‘mutually decided’ to part ways in terms of the ‘leadership structure.’ The move comes in the backdrop of changes of personnel at the top of the decision-making group of the franchise with former Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara taking over as the director of the team starting the upcoming edition of the league. Meanwhile, the Royals have also stated that former Warwickshire player Trevor Penney will join the team as the Lead Assistant coach for the upcoming edition and he will work closely with Sangakkara and skipper Sanju Samson in pursuit of the franchise’s aim to win the trophy for the second time after the inaugural edition in 2008. The franchise thanked McDonald for coaching and leading the team in tough situations in the last season when the event was oragnised behind the closed doors. Royals’ COO, Lush McCrum also extended the best wishes to the former Australian all-rounder who now had taken up the responsibility as the assistant coach of the Australian team.

Pujara excited to be back in IPL, says will take a call on county cricket later

He last featured for the the then Kings XI Punjab in 2014 edition of the league.

Pujara not bothered by challenges of Pink-ball Test, defends Chepauk pitch as 'not dangerous'

The stories around the ongoing Test series between India and England have been dominated by the quality and nature of of the pitches used so far in the two Tests, and there is no end to the talks surrounding the 22-yards as the pitch for the third Test at Motera remains under widespread scrutiny. India’s number three, Cheteshwar Pujara who had to come quickly to see what the two surfaces offered to bowlers and batsmen in the first two Tests was presented with the challenge of predicting what the pitch in the third Test would look like. To add to the complexity of the situation, the third Test will be a pink-ball affair and hence groundsmen will have their task cut out in order to balance the assistance between bowlers and batsmen as the piano ball by nature goes soft very quickly compared to the red balls. In Pujara’s eyes, the pitch at the Motera appears to be a ‘decent’ pitch, but he also urged cautions against reading too much into it given there is enough time left before the first ball will be bowled on the surface. He also outlined the unpredictability of the behaviour of the pink ball and said that it can throw up challenges complete unseen and unexpected before the start of the game. "We have three-four days and a lot could change. It looks a decent pitch but it's difficult to predict anything, considering we're playing with a pink ball. With the red ball, it'd be a different ball game, but with the pink ball, it's difficult to assess. You expect something, but it could turn out to be something else. I want to just try and keep things simple and not worry too much about the pitch,” Pujara said in a virtual press conference. The winter in the Western part of India where the Sardar Patel Stadium is located will mean that there will be an onset of due and Pujara said that he too expects the due to bring some effect on the game. However, he said that the extent of its effect is still unknown, but most likely will be limited to the third session of the day’s play. "Yes, there may be dew. Looking at the weather, there's a possibility of dew in the final session. The guys have played a lot of cricket with the white ball here, and the bowlers are used to it. As batters, we've played with the pink ball. It could in the third session, although how much we don't know yet. We will have a better idea, but we are expecting dew,” Pujara added. Team India has had completely contrasting fortunes in the only two day-night fixture they have been part of as their lowest total in Tests came in a similar affair against Australia in December 2020. Before that, in their first pink ball game against Bangladesh at home, India steamrolled Bangladesh on the back of a strong pace-attack as spinners did not take even a single wicket at the Eden Gardens. Pujara said that the team will not improve playing with pink-ball by playing one-off Test, but at the same time suggested India will not be compelled to change their tactics going into the third Test against England. On the point of humiliation in Adelaide, Pujara downplayed the collapse as an aftereffect of one terrible session where balls were swinging, otherwise, the team was in commanding position till the end of the first innings fo both sides. "I've played so many Tests but with the pink ball, even I don't have enough experience. I don't think it matters a lot when you play one-off pink-ball Tests, we will get used to it as we keep playing more. We'll have to just play normal cricket, have similar game plans as we had in the previous Test match, depending on the pitch. We'll just stick to that. In Adelaide, the ball was swinging around and we had one bad session of poor batting that led to that disaster, but overall if you look at the first innings, we were in a dominating position." Pujara also came strongly in defence of the pitch at Chepauk which attracted severe criticism from pundits, especially from England. He said that batsmen find it tougher to score when pitches like at the Chepauk provide assistance to spinners, but Indian batsmen combat similar challenges when they go overseas and face seamers on pitches that have live grass on them and provide a lot of seam movement. He conceded that batting was difficult on the Chepauk pitch in the second innings but said that pitches in Australia have cracks as well that deviate balls to awkward positions for batsmen and he hoped the English batsmen will find a way as they will get accustomed to it. "Sometimes, if you're playing on a turner, you find it difficult, but it wasn't a dangerous pitch at all," he said. "When the ball spins, people find it difficult to score runs. When we go overseas, we also play on seaming tracks where games finish in three or four days. We still have to play on pitches with grass and seam movement. When it comes to turning tracks, you can't define how much it should turn. There's a thin line, but I don't think it was a bad pitch,” Pujara said. “Yes, it always becomes difficult in the second innings, but even when we play in Australia on fourth or fifth-day tracks, balls can hit the cracks and take off. As a team, I don't think we had an issue, am sure England once they're used to it and play more matches, they'll also figure out a way." Pujara batted brilliantly in the Test series against Australia and was batting with great touch to look good for a hundred that has eluded him for than two years now in the first innings of the first Test against England before he got out on one of the most unfortunate ways of getting dismissed in cricket. Pujara played the talks around his lack of hundred down to the attributes of batting that are under his control and hoped that the three-figure mark is not that far away for him in Tests. "The way I am batting, although the three-figures haven't come, I am hoping it won't' be too far away. As a batsman, what is in my control - my practice, preparation, process - it's been wonderful. I'm confident of getting a big score very soon." The third Test between India and England is scheduled to start on February 24 at Motera in Ahmedabad. India are contemplating the decision of bringing an extra seamer in place of the third spinner which may well be Kuldeep Yadav while the tourists are banking on the pink-ball to negate the extra amount of spin from the Indian spinners and extract some swing in the air for their pacers, especially James Anderson who is destined to come back after a widely controversial rest in the second Test.