Overseas stars will not travel to Lahore

QUETTA Gladiators will be without their star overseas players for Sunday’s final with Luke Wright, Kevin Pietersen and Tymal Mills all pulling out of the Lahore showpiece.

Top scorer Rilee Rossouw and Nathan McCullum will also not travel despite one-off payments, ranging from $10,000 to $50,000, being offered to foreign players should they agree to play.

Wright tweeted: “It’s with a heavy heart I will not be coming to Lahore. I have a young family and for me a game of cricket is just not worth the risk. I’m sorry as I know how much it means to you all and hopefully in the future the safety will not be in doubt to come play there.”

Pietersen’s last innings of the competition saw him smash 40 off just 22 balls as Quetta beat Peshawar Zalmi by one run. Ahmed Shahzad had made 71 opening the innings for the Gladiators as they racked up 200 from their 20 overs.

And Peshawar fell just short despite 77 from Mohammad Hafeez and 56 from Dawid Malan. With seven required off the final over there were two run outs off the last two balls, this after Chris Jordan had been dismissed for a golden duck.

Peshawar will face Karachi Kings in today’s eliminator for the other spot in Friday’s final after the Kings comfortably beat Islamabad United. Despite making a relatively small total of 126, Karachi dismissed their opponents for just 82 as all 20 wickets fell.

Islamabad looked to be favourites after Rumman Raees took 4-25, with Mohammad Sami’s 2-19 also restricting Karachi. But Mohammad Amir, Imad Wasim and Usama Mir all chipped in with three wickets to send them into today’s eliminator.

Man of the match Imad, who claimed 3-18 including the wickets of Misbah-ulHaq and Shane Watson, said: “I like those crunch situations and the wicket was on the low side, so I just bowled short of a length and not giving room.

“If you don’t take wickets you can’t win and in a low-scoring game you have to take wickets to win.”