Soon after the battle between Quetta Gladiators and Karachi Kings finished, the third match began between Lahore Qalandars and the newbie Sultans.
The Qalandars Skipper Brendon McCullum won the toss and decided to bowl first.
Kumar Sangakkara and Ahmad Shahzad opened for Multan Sultans whereas Raza Hassan opened for Qalandars.
The Multan Sultans openers were looking absolutely comfortable without being under pressure, they were cruising for higher scores.
The partnership between the openers continued for 88 runs but then on the first ball of eleventh over Ahmad Shahzad got dismissed by Mustafizur after scoring 38 off 33 balls.
The next batsman Shoaib Maqsood of Sultans couldn’t stay longer on the bitch and got out in the next over by Yasir Shah after scoring just 4 runs.
But then the seniors, Sanga and Skipper Malik took the charge and start building up the pressure on bowlers.
Sanga played an exceptional knock just like his previous match with the team. He added an important 63 runs off 44 balls but then veteran became the target of Mustafizur Rahman.
The Skipper of Sultans, Shoaib Malik made 48 runs off 28 balls and their team managed to finish at 179 runs at the loss of 5 wickets.
Sunil Narine and Fakhar Zaman opened for Lahore Qalandars. Sunil was playing exceptionally well and was setting up their team to chase the big total of 180 runs.
After scoring 26 runs off 20 balls, the West Indian all-rounder was dismissed and Qalandars lost their first wicket on 32 runs in fourth over.
Qalandars Skipper Baz came to bat. The pressure was still on the bowling side. The Qalandars started well. But the big blow they got was dismal for their Skipper on a duck!
But the moment Qalandars required a decent partnership, Umar Akmal stepped in to support Fakhar Zaman.
Fakhar and Umar Akmal played some brilliant knocks. Their partnership looked strong and the match was slipping out of Sultans’ hands.
But, at the end of 13th over, Umar Akmal, who looked very stable got out by Pollard and Qalandars were shaken by this wicket.
Fakhar Zaman looked stable, and had score 49 off just 29 balls and in addition, Sohail Akhtar also played some big shots and made 21 off 10 balls.
Fakhar Zaman got dismissed by Pollard, and in the very next over Sohail Akhtar fell to Imran Tahir’s googly.
Qalandars were 132 at the loss of three, but as usual, Qalandars made a blunder again. Their whole team got out on 136 runs.
Qalandars lost their 7 wickets for 4 runs only. This would be named as a historical collapse of any team in Pakistan Super League.
Credit behind this collapse goes to Junaid Khan as he managed to take a hat-trick in the 17th over of the match. It was the only second hat trick of Pakistan Super League. Interestingly, the first hat-trick was taken by Muhammad Amir in the last season and that too was against Lahore Qalandars.
The Sultans continues with their consistency of winning. They newbies have won both their matches.
And this match was won by Multan Sultans by 43 runs.
Imran Tahir was named as Man of the Match
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