MULTAN: Multan Sultans defeated Peshawar Zalmi by 56 runs in the fifth match of Pakistan Super League (PSL) at Multan Cricket Stadium on Friday with an outstanding 75 runs of Rilee Rossouw.
Zalmi won the toss and decided to field first. Batting first, Multan Sultan’s openers Muhammad Rizwan and Shan Masood started with a confident partnership of 54 runs before Shan Masood was caught behind on Irshad’s delivery by scoring 20 runs.
The Sultan team Captain Muhammad Rizwan kept on putting pressure with hitting unstoppable boundaries.
He contributed 66 runs in the total after he was dismissed by Muqeem. Rossouw’s 75 runs inning helped Sultans to set a target of 211 with 23 runs of miller and 15 runs of Pollard.
Chasing the target, the Zamli’s went under pressure when Captain Babar Azam was LBW in the first delivery of Ihsanullah’s first over by scoring 9 runs leaving his team at 41/1.
The partnership of Haris and Saim Ayub stabilized the batting line up when Haris was run out after scoring 40 runs. Saim Ayub gave and outstanding performance and scored 53 runs before he was bowled on Usama Mir’s turning delivery.
Ihsanullah and Usama Mir of Multan Sultans took three wickets each. Rilee Rossouw was declared man of the match.
‘Team Zalmi to work for fielding improvement’
Meanwhile, Peshawar Zalmi’s opener and wicketkeeper Muhammad Haris said that the team would control mistakes and work on the fielding in order to improve performance.
Holding a press conference after the match on Friday at Multan Cricket Stadium, the top-order batsman said that misfielding and no balls by bowlers enable Multan Sultan to set a strong target.
He said the players have been fined over misfielding and no balls in the last match.
Haris said his run-out was his own fault there was no mistake by his partner Saim Ayub. He termed the run-out as the turning point of the match and added that he could make the target easy for the team if it had not happened.
To a question, he said the pitch of Multan was fast as compared to Karachi.
He said it was planning to restrict Sultan’s at a total of 190 runs maximum but they managed to set a strong target because of misfielding.
