By Shahid Hashmi
Intermittent rain ruined a high-voltage Pakistan Super League match on Friday (February 17), leaving both Quetta Gladiators and Peshawar Zalmi with one point each after an abandonment left a packed house frustrated.
A persistent drizzle delayed the spin of the coin by 10 minutes before Sarfraz Ahmed, the Quetta captain, won the toss and put Peshawar into bat. But the innings was halted thrice to break a good momentum in a match finally reduced to 16 overs a side.
The players went off after 3.4, 12 and 12.1 overs, and Peshawar eventually managed 117 for 3 from their 16 overs. The target was revised thrice on the Duckworth-Lewis method and Quetta were finally set 55 to win in six overs. But after Ahmed Shehzad and Thisara Perera came out for the chase, a further spell of heavy rain forced the match to be called off.
When Peshawar had batted, Tamim Iqbal steadied the innings with a polished 46-ball 62 not out after Mohammad Hafeez (16), Kamran Akmal (0) and Eoin Morgan (1) fell in 7.1 overs.
Hafeez made his highest score of the competition during an opening stand of 41 in 35 deliveries with Tamim before Peshwar lost three wickets for the addition of just one run in eight balls.
After Hafeez fell to Mahmudullah, Kamran was dismissed by Hasan Khan. Then Rilee Rossouw, who had never bowled in 15 Twenty20 Internationals, took the prized wicket of Morgan with his first ball but Tamim and Sohaib Maqsood (30 off 24 balls) added 75 runs interrupted by two rain breaks.
The regular to-and-fro from the middle left a packed house disappointed. Many had come for a glimpse of Shahid Afridi, the crowd favourite, with more than 10,000 people waiting outside the ground hoping to somehow find a way in. Local police had to summon a dog squad to disperse the crowd.
Tamim, who joined the squad after featuring in the one-off Test against India in Hyderabad, smashed two sixes off Zulfiqar Babar, the left-arm spinner, but Perera managed to put the brakes by conceding just four singles in the final over. Eventually, though, that would be immaterial.
Peshawar top the chart with a better run-rate after the washout left them and Quetta tied on five points each from four games apiece. Islamabad United, who take on Karachi Kings in Friday’s other game, have four points from three and Lahore Qalandars have four points from as many matches. Karachi have lost all their three matches.