Karachi Kings lost the match by 47 runs and they had lost their five continuous matches in the ongoing league while the PSL is halfway through and Karachi Kings have one foot out of the tournament.
Islamabad United had won the toss and elected to bat first. Both the openers of United were on a fire and continuously hitting the boundaries. By their bats, Runs were continuously flowing for United. After the end of the first power play, United was on 53-0.
Then, Imad provides the first breakthrough for Kings by taking Hale’s wicket. Stirling fell soon after and, for a while, the bowlers appeared to have a hold over the game.
Shadab, though, was playing through a delightful little knock finding fine boundaries to keep the run rate up even as Colin Munro struggled at the other end.
A fine running tumbling catch by Babar, he would sparkle once more in the field with a sensational one-handed grab running back to see the end of Asif Ali brought an end to Shadab’s knock.
Another erotic Jordan over at the death and some chomping drives from Azam Khan brought 25 off the final two overs.
Islamabad United set a total of 177-6 after the 20 overs.
The chase began devastating for the kings, with a mix-up between Babar Azam and Sharjeel Khan seeing the latter run out in the second over.
Faheem, Mohammad Wasim, Mubashir Ahmad, and Waqas Mehmood took turns bowling during the powerplay but each maintained control over the king’s batters, who could only manage to score 21 in the first five overs.
Karachi Kings was never in the game as they regularly lose the wickets. Their batters look rusty against pacer and lost so much ground early that they couldn’t much of a mark against spinners either.
There was mild entertainment for the home crowd when Mohammad Nabi and Umaid Asif cut loose at the death, the way you do when there’s no pressure because all is doomed anyway.
Mohammad Wasim was slogged for 20 in an over and Mohammad Nabi smashed an entertaining 28 ball 47 to see off the game, but all that provided was an illusion of competition in a game that contained very little of it.
Karachi Kings lost the match by 42 runs while they had lost their five consecutively matches in the ongoing tournament.
Shadab Khan is the player of the match:
“I have struggled a lot in the last two years through injuries. Since I’ve regained fitness, I have found control and am glad that I am putting in the performances. These personal milestones are very important and I am extremely happy. I am very satisfied with the team combination. We wanted to win the toss and bat to put our bowlers in a different situation and they returned the trust. I want to specifically mention Azam Khan’s cameo at the very end. It gave us a lot of momentum going into the 2nd innings.”
Babar Azam, losing skipper (Karachi Kings):
“Unfortunately we have lost all games so far. I will try to give the boys more confidence going ahead. We’re hoping we’ll play better in Lahore. I think we leaked some extra runs but I still felt that it was chase-able.”
Islamabad United 177 for 6 (Stirling 39, Shadab 34, Jordan 2-36) beat Karachi Kings 135 for 9 (Nabi 47*, Shadab 4-15) by 42 runs.
