• Home
  • Cricket News
  • Psl 6 With Top Spot Up For Grabs Islamabad Face The Lahore Challenge

PSL 6: With top spot up for grabs, Islamabad face the Lahore Challenge

Abhishek Singh

Come 4th of March and Karachi Kings would be removed from the top spot in the sixth edition of the Pakistan Super League. It would be courtesy either Islamabad United or Lahore Qalandars, as the two teams with equal number points as Karachi would face off in a high voltage Thursday night clash. 

Both Qalandars and United are coming on the back of comprehensive wins. While the Sohail Akhtar led side downed Karachi in an impressive chase, United battered Quetta in an almost one-sided clash. This would be the first meeting of the two teams in this edition of the league, where Lahore would have the chance to register their first-ever win against the side from the Capital in their last six meetings. 

Lamichhane' entry would make Lahore stronger

With Lahore getting the replacement of Rashid Khan in the form of Nepalese Sandeep Lamichhane, the Qalandars will now get even stronger in this game as a leg spinner was the only thing they were lacking. Samit Patel has been taken for cleaners and with Ben Dunk and David Wiese returning to form, Lamichhane becomes an obvious choice for the Qalandars think tank. 

The other area that needs to be worked at by the Qalandars is the form of their skipper. Although in the last game he got out without even facing the ball, the form for the 35-year-old has been a reason of worry for his team. If and when he gets going, Lahore will become a deadly batting side, that no team would like to face. 

Islamabad fast bowling a threat to Lahore

The fast bowling in this edition of the PSL has been exemplary. As a result of that, There are nine fast bowlers in the list of top 10 wicket-takers this season. The Islamabad side has got some fine pace bowlers in the form of Hasan Ali, Mohammad Wasim Jr. and Faheem Ashraf. They are a deadly trio, well supported by the likes of Lewis Gregory and Shadab Khan, complimenting their wicket-taking abilities with their economical bowling. 

The Qlanadars’ strong position is their batting and if United pacers could take out the likes of Mohammad Hafeez, Fakhar Zaman and Ben Dunk, then the going would get difficult for the Lahore team. 

Lahore Qalandars vs Islamabad United: Match Details

Match Number- 15

Date and Time: 04th March 2021, 07:30 pm IST, 07:00 pm PST, 02:00 pm GMT

Venue: National Stadium, Karachi

Broadcast and Live Stream: Sony SIX, Sony LIV

Pitch Report

Enough has been said about the pitch so far and people have seen enough of it as well. No doubt it is a sporting pitch,  a t20 friendly pitch with a lot of runs on offer, but with all these qualities, the dew is making it a lot more predictable than it should be. All the totals are getting chased and people can almost predict the result just by knowing the result of the toss. A similar pitch is expected for this game as well. But it would be a real surprise if some team is able to defend a target at the NSK. 

Weather and Toss

The toss has no doubt been the most crucial part of any game at Karachi. Thus in this game too, the captains of both the teams and their fans would be praying to all their gods so that the coin flip comes in their favour. The team winning the toss would obviously be fielding first. 

The weather is another predictable thing at Karachi with clear skies and temperatures between 20 to 27 degrees welcoming the players and the fans to the ground. Perfect weather for cricket sans the dew of course. 

Probable XI

Lahore Qalandars

Fakhar Zaman, Zeeshan Ashraf, Joe Denly, Mohammad Hafeez, Sohail Akhtar (c), Ben Dunk (wk), David Wiese, Shaheen Afridi, Ahmed Daniyal, Sandeep Lamichhane, Haris Rauf

Islamabad United

Paul Stirling, Alex Hales, Shadab Khan (c), Iftikhar Ahmed, Rohail Nazir (wk), Asif Ali, Hussain Talat, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Wasim Jr, Muhammad Musa

Dream XI / Fantasy XI Suggestions

Fakhar Zaman, Alex Hales (vc), Mohammad Hafeez (c), Asif Ali, Ben Dunk, Rohail Nazir, David Wiese, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Sandeep Lamichhane, Haris Rauf 

Discover more

Top Stories
news

Babar, Nabi take Karachi home as the ‘chasing team wins’ streak moves to 13 in PSL 6

Pakistani sensation Babar Azam once again proved why he is rated highly in the world. The Karachi Kings batsman scored 77 off 47 balls to take his team home in what was the 13th win on the trot for a team chasing in this year’s Pakistan Super League. All the matches in the PSL so far have now been won by the team batting second. Babar Azam, who opened the innings for Karachi, carried the bat, as he also carried the team along playing the anchor’s role in the chase of 189. The Kings did not start on the right note as the last match’s highest run-getter Sharjeel khan was removed on the very first ball by Mohammad Imran. Soon, Joe Clarke and Colin Ingram also followed suit. At 43-3 after the end of seven overs, Mohammad Nabi joined Babar and started counter-attacking the Zalmi. The two then started taking the game away from Shoaib Malik’s men. However, Umaid Asif, the ‘Iron Man’ from the last game got Nabi to play a miscued when he was in his early thirties, but Amad Butt at the Square leg boundary made a complete mess of it, giving Nabi a second life. From there on, there was no coming back for the Zalmi as Nabi, 36 and Babar, 26 put on 118 run stand for the fifth wicket. Nabi hit his second half-century (67 off 35) in a row before getting caught by Tom Kohler-Cadmore off a Saqib Mahmood delivery. Dan Christain who replaced Nabi completed the formalities. To no one’ surprise, Karachi, after winning the toss, invited Peshawar to bat first in the afternoon. The Zalmi didn’t have a good start, getting reduced to 69-4 in the first 10 overs before Ravi Bopara and Sherfane Rutherford pulled up a commendable rebuild. The two not only steadied the ship but also increased the scoring rate, adding 82 in 54 balls for the sixth wicket. However, it was Amad Butt and his insane last over hitting that made the sorry looking total a competitive one. He tonked Dan Christain for 32 runs in the last over, hitting three fours and two sixes. It was also the most expensive over in PSL’s history. This was the third win for Karachi at the National Stadium in five games. With this, they have now reached the top of the PSL Points Table with six points. Zalmi are also at six points but positioned at the second spot due to a lower net run rate. In the next game, Karachi play Multan Sultans on 5th March while Zalmi will have their hands full when they take on Lahore Qalandars the second match of the double header’s day on 6th March.

news

Kohli lambasts hypercritical views of spinning pitches; outlines silence on seaming tracks

India’s skipper Virat Kohli has come down heavily on cricket pundits and former players who have criticised the pitches used in the last two Tests of the series between India and England. Kohli called the conversion around the quality of pitches ‘noise’ and lamented the lack of ‘balanced conversation’ on the narratives about pitches. "There's always too much noise and too much conversation about spinning tracks. I'm sure that if our media is in a space to contradict those views or present views that say that it is unfair to criticise only spinning tracks, then I think it'll be a balanced conversation. But the unfortunate bit is that everyone sort of plays along with that narrative and just keeps making it news till the time it is relevant,” Kohli said in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday. Kohli pointed out India’s big loss on overseas tours where matches finished early inside the three days, but the words that were propagated that Indian batsmen can’t play on seaming tracks, and while foreign batsmen fail on Indian pitches that assist turn and bounce, people start blaming the nature of pitches. "A Test match happens, and if we win on day four or five no one says anything, but if a match finishes in two days, everyone pounces on the same issue. It just becomes an issue to talk about. We lost in New Zealand on day three, in 36 overs. I'm sure none of our people as well wrote about the pitch. It was all about how India played badly in New Zealand. And none of the pitches were criticised. No one came and saw how much the pitch was doing, how much the ball was moving, and how much grass there was on the pitches. " He expressed dismay over a lot of analysis over the quality of pitches and not the quality of innings by batsmen and spin bowling from both sides. He criticised batsmen from both sides for bizarre batting displays, especially in the last game. He outlined the impact of a Pink ball in the last Test but weighed in that the ball was the same in terms of general characteristics, and hence the onus was on batsmen to put up good efforts to set up the game, and they failed in the task. "I don't understand why the cricket ball, the cricket pitch, all these things are brought into focus. Why don't we just focus on the fact that the batsmen were just not skilled enough on that pitch to play properly, and it was a bizarre display of batting by both teams in a Test match, and I will continue to maintain that, because I've played this game long enough to understand what happens on the cricket field. And it's not a change in the ball colour or the change in the cricket ball, it's still round, it still weighs five and a half ounces, so I don't know what difference it makes suddenly,” Kohli added. India have been apologetic for playing on turning tracks and will be desperate to win the last Test to win the series and seal a spot in the World Test Championship for themselves on a similar pitch to the one in the last game.

news

Playing two Test matches against India was a mistake: David Warner

Australian opener David Warner has said that it was a mistake to play the last two Tests matches against India last summer. According to Warner, forcing himself to play those games aggravated the injury he was nursing from before the start of the Test series. "I made the call to play those Test matches, felt like I needed to be out there and help the guys," Warner, who was headed to Adelaide to play for New South Wales against South Australia, told the reporters. Warner further said that the rushed decision making pushed his rehab down the line and has made him stay away from the game, longer than he anticipated. "Looking back in hindsight I probably wouldn't have done that, where I am with the injury it put me back a little bit,” Warner said. The dashing left-hander clarified that it was not his personal decision to play the Tests, rather a decision that he took for the team. "If I'm thinking about myself I probably would have said no, but I did what I felt was best for the team and me being out there opening the batting was I felt the best thing for the team," he said. Detailing his plans for the future, the 34-year-old said that his immediate target is to play the 2023 ODI World Cup, which he thinks is going to be his last World Cup. "I'm not thinking about the end date at all, for me it's about the 2023 World Cup,” said Warner. “From a Test cricket point of view I'd love to play as long as I can,” he added stating his Test plans.