Fierce pace from Shaheen Afridi and late charge from David Wiese pushed Lahore Qalandars to a six-wicket victory over defending champion Karachi Kings in the Pakistani Super League on Sunday.
Afridi returned numbers from 3 to 27, with his bowling reaching speeds of 94 mph (around 150 km / h). This helped to limit Karachi to 186-9 despite being half-centuries by Sharjeel Khan (64) and Afghan Mohammad Nabi (57).
Wiese’s 31 blisters on nine balls took Lahore to 189-4 on 19.2 overs in response as the tall South African clubbed two consecutive sixes against Australian fast pitcher Daniel Christian to end the game.
Karachi had a snort of victory when Lahore demanded 30 over the last two overs. But Mohammad Amir’s 19th went for 20 with Wiese getting two lucky edges at the limit, then smoothing out the quick pitcher longer for a six.
“To be honest, I always felt we were in for a cry in this situation,” Wiese said.
“Sometimes you smash it straight to the outfielder, so those little gashes count. We have seen towards the back that it is difficult to defend yourself here with a short limit.
Fakhar Zaman scored a brilliant 83 on 54 balls and Ben Dunk went undefeated on 57 after Lahore slipped to 0-2 on the first top, then also lost key batsman Mohammad Hafeez for 15 in the batting power play.
The two lefties shared a 119 point stand before Zaman made his way to the 18th. But Wiese’s late attack brought the team home.
Afridi could have picked up five wickets but Lahore skipper Sohail Akhtar, who won the draw and didn’t hesitate to line up, dropped a Khan keeper in the first.
Babar Azam (5) was beaten by Afridi in his second game, but only after Zaman failed to keep a strong chance offered by Pakistan’s lead batsman, who went to interrupt Afridi’s short-lived delivery .
Afridi caught up with Karachi’s hopes of getting closer to 200 points when he knocked out Waqas Maqsood and Vicious Yorkers Amir in the final round.
“They shouldn’t have been chasing him but credit goes to Fakhar and David Wiese for the way they played,” said Karachi captain Imad Wasim, who surprisingly didn’t play. “In the end we should have scored 40 or 50 over the last four overs, but we couldn’t because of a few bad shots and missteps.
It was PSL’s 11th consecutive successful pursuit of this season with no team yet to defend the total after being batted by the opposition.
The victory pushed Lahore to the top of the points table alongside Peshawar Zalmi with both teams on six points after four games. Karachi has four points.