Babar and Nabi help Karachi beat Peshawar by six wickets, Quetta notch first win in PSL
KARACHI: Babar Azam and Mohammad Nabi’s century stand lited Karachi Kings to a six-wicket victory over Peshawar Zalmi on Wednesday in yet another successful chase in the Pakistan Super League.
Babar made an unbeaten 77 and Nabi scored 67 off 35 balls as they shared a 118-run fourthwicket stand off 61 balls in Karachi’s strong chase of 191-4 in 19.3 overs.
Earlier, ater being put in to bat, Peshawar recovered from 3-34 to reach 188-5 with Ravi Bopara scoring an unbeaten 58 and Amad But making a rapid 27 off only seven deliveries.
“The way Babar Azam and Mohammad Nabi played, it was fantastic to see,” Karachi captain Imad Wasim said. “You just need to be patient on this surface and if you setle in, you can score a lot of runs.”
Fast bowler Daniel Christian bowled the most expensive over ever bowled in PSL history when he conceded 32 runs in the last over of the innings as But smashed two sixes and three boundaries while conceding six wides.
The win lited defending champion Karachi to the top of the table with eight points from five games. Peshawar are second with six points.
All 13 games so far in Pakistan’s premier Twenty20 league have been won by the teams chasing.
Peshawar’s scratchy fielding also helped Karachi as But dropped a siter from Nabi at deep midwicket when the Afghanistan batsman was on 20. Nabi finally fell in the 17th over off Saqib Mahmood (2-41) ater hiting eight fours and four sixes.
“Of course that was a very crucial catch, we should have goten that catch,” stand-in Peshawar captain Shoaib Malik said as he led his side ater regular skipper Wahab Riaz was ruled out of the game with back spasms. “In high-scoring games, whoever fields well has an edge in close games.”
Babar completed his third half century this season off 35 balls with a six off But over midwicket before Christian finished off the game with a flicked boundary.
Zalmi players have been fined 10 per cent of their match fees for maintaining a slow over-rate during the match.
Zalmi were found an over short of their target ater taking into account time allowances and, as such, were charged under Article 2.22 of the PCB Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which deals with the minimum over-rate offences.
Zalmi captain Shoaib accepted the sanction proposed by match referee Itikhar Ahmed. The charges were levelled by on-field umpires Rashid Riaz and Shozab Raza and third umpire Ahsan Raza.
In another match, Queta Gladiators finally notched their first win of the tournament by beating Multan Sultans by 22 runs on Wednesday.
But Queta’s victory ater four straight losses ended a 13-match streak of teams successfully chasing down the targets since the tournament began on Feb. 20.
Queta lost the toss for the fith time in a row and posted 176-7 on the back of rookie opening batsman Usman Khan’s 81 off 50 balls.
Multan lost their last six wickets off 20 deliveries before eventually geting bowled out for 154 in 19.3 overs.
Zahid Mahmood was denied a hat-trick when Ben Cuting dropped a siter of Imran Tahir at long off ater the legspinner had captain Mohammad Rizwan (66) and Sohail Khan (8) caught in the deep off successive deliveries in the 18th over.
Afghanistan legspinner Qais Ahmed (3-21) had earlier claimed wickets in his first three overs which pegged back Multan’s run-chase.
Multan and Queta both are languishing at the botom of the six-team event with two points each ater playing half of their league games.