Lahore win at last
Lahore Qalandars finally woke up from their deep slumber. And it took a 17-year-old to do that. Shaheen Shah Afridi, the 6ft 6 inch left-arm pacer, bowled his heart out to finish with figures of 3.4-1-4-5 and give Lahore their first taste of victory, in seven matches, in the 3rd HBL Pakistan Super League.
Shaheen grabbed four wickets in three balls in his second over and then another two in four balls in his third over to rattle debutants Multan Sultans for a meagre 114 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
The bottom-placed side then achieved their target through contributions from captain Brendon McCullum (35 not out), Gulraiz Sadaf (27) and Anton Devcich (22).
Prior to this match, Lahore had become the first team to suffer eight consecutive losses in the PSL. That downslide was finally nipped and the win has now given them a glimmer of hope of making the Playoffs. But with only three matches to go, they will need many more Afridi-like performances to take them through.
For the moment they will savour this victory which came against the high-flying Sultans.
Kumar Sangakkara (45) and Ahmed Shehzad (32) gave the Multans a solid start after they won the toss. Sangakkara with 250 runs from seven innings is second on the run-scorers’ list after Quetta Gladiators’ Shane Watson (262).
But once he and Shehzad departed the rest crumbled against some hostile bowling from Afridi.
Afridi who has career-best figures of 8 for 39 in first-class cricket started his slide with the wicket of Multan captain Shoaib Malik (3), Ross Whiteley (0) and Saif Badar (0). He later returned for his third over and scalped Junaid Khan (1) and Mohammad Irfan (0) as two balls were still to go.
Lahore made heavy weather of chasing a modest target. In the end they won with six wickets and eight balls remaining.