Sherfane Rutherford hit four sixes in the final four overs as Peshawar Zalmi staged a memorable fightback to overcome the Quetta Gladiators with three balls remaining.
The required total of 199 was the fourth-highest chase in Pakistan Super League history and it was achieved when Rutherford drilled Mohammad Hasnain’s delivery through the covers for four. The previous delivery had slipped from Hasnain’s grip during his run-up and flew wide of the keeper for five wides, essentially handing Zalmi the game.
Quetta Gladiators’ innings
Quetta were put into bat first and, despite Chris Gayle not being picked, batted well. Cameron Delport’s wicket was the first to fall after just 13 balls. However, his replacement Faf Du Plessis, making his first appearance of PSL 6, scored 37 off 26 to give the Gladiators lift off.
Saim Ayub was run out by Rutherford for Peshawar’s second wicket, diving to no avail. Ayub added 21 runs to the score off 19 balls, but four fours accounted for most of his runs. At 48-2 the innings had scope to go either way. Du Plessis was the next to go and his 37, combined with the efforts of Ayub, Delport and his longer-term partner Sarfaraz Ahmed, meant that Quetta were 88-3 with 62 balls bowled and another 58 remaining.
Ahmed, the 33-year-old Gladiators captain, hit 81 off 40 balls and was clearly in no mood to hang about. He scored his runs at a rate of over two runs a ball. His attacking spell was ended when Wahab Riaz’s last delivery of the game was slogged to long-on by Ahmed, who was duly caught by Shoaib Malik. The shot was a little too low to carry over the boundary, but Ahmed had done the bulk of the work in taking Quetta, otherwise known as Purple Force, to 193-4. The question was: would they be the first team to win batting first in this tournament?
However, there was still one over left for Gladiators to bat. It proved to be a dramatic one at that, with three wickets falling in it.
Azam Khan and Ben Cutting fell in the first two balls of the over. Cutting was clean bowled by Saqib Mahmood and Azam Khan, who hit 47 and was looking for a half century, was caught by a diving Tom Kohler-Cadmore. Mohammad Nawaz was also caught by Kohler-Cadmore on the penultimate ball of the innings. Saqib finished with three wickets from five balls but will be frustrated his purple patch didn’t come earlier in the game.
Peshawar Zalmi’s innings
Peshawar went in knowing that a total of 199 was needed for a victory after the Gladiators closed on 198-7.
Kamran Akmal was the first Peshawar batsman to fall and he did so when he sliced his cut shot straight to Cutting at deep point. The wicket was made particularly satisfying by the fact that Cutting moved positions just before the ball and was rewarded with an instant wicket.
Kohler-Cadmore joined Imam Ul-Haq at the crease but departed soon after, caught by Delport off Dale Steyn’s bowling. Steyn, like Du Plessis, made his first appearance of the tournament on Friday. Zalmi were 27-2 after just four overs.
Ul-Haq and Haider Ali created a partnership of sorts at the crease and when Ul-Haq was bowled by Zahid Mahmood early in the 10th over, the score had increased to 79-3 and things looked a little brighter for the Yellow Storm.
Haider Ali was dismissed on 50 runs when the two South Africans in Quetta’s side combined to remove him. A slower bowl from Steyn was hit to mid-off where Du Plessis was waiting to catch on the boundary.
Shoaib Malik was given LBW off Cutting’s bowling in just the next over and were 145-5 with a little over four overs to play. Rutherford proved to be Zalmi’s hero in the latter stages, hitting 36 off 18 balls that included four sixes in the final four overs. He pulled the Yellows back from the clutches of defeat and on the cusp of victory.
Going into the final over, they needed six off six to win. Hasnain was the man put in charge of limiting Zalmi to five or less off the over. He got off to the ideal start, claiming consecutive wickets in Wahab Riaz and Saqib Mahmood. However, the third ball was when it all went wrong for Hasnain. It slipped out of his hand early and his attempted full toss flew agonisingly wide to the rope and five wides were given. Rutherford drilled the next ball through the covers for four and the game was Peshawar’s.
Multan Sultans beat Lahore Qalandars by seven wickets
In the other game of the day, Mohammad Rizwan hit a 49-ball 76 as the Multan Sultans made easy work of a target of 157 against the Lahore Qalandars.
Lahore Qalandars’ innings
Qalandars lost the toss and were made to bat first. And after the six-over powerplay were 25-2, their lowest six-over total in PSL history. In fact, Lahore only reached a respectable total thanks to Mohammad Hafeez and his 27-ball half-century. Hafeez went on to reach 60 from 35 before he was run out by Usman Qadir.
Lahore’s second-highest scorer was Joe Denly, brought into the fold for the first time on Friday. He only managed a disappointing 31 before a thick edge saw Carlos Braithwaite’s bowl carry through to keeper Mohammad Rizwan.
Qalandars’ batsmen, with the exception of Hafeez, struggled to find any real rhythm and by the time their 20 overs were up had only reached a total of 157, for a loss of six wickets.
Multan Sultans’ innings
The Sultans chased this down with ease thanks to the excellence of captain Rizwan, who hit 76 runs off 49 balls, and Soqaib Maqsood who hit 61 off 41. Between the pair of them, they hit 19 fours and just two sixes (both hit by Maqsood).
This was after their innings got off to a nightmare start. Chris Lynn fell for a duck on his second ball, the third ball of their 20 overs. James Vince, England’s sub fielder in the Cricket World Cup final of 2019, was out just three overs later when he was caught by a bowl from his fellow countryman, Samit Patel. Vince scooped his shot into the air above mid-on, where he was duly caught by Haris Rauf.
But, from there on in, Sultans took charge and powered past the Qalandars total after just 16 overs for what was their first win of the series.
