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Defending Champions Begin Title Defence With Big Win Over Karachi

Post-Match

Multan Sultans won the opening encounter of PSL 7 as they convincingly defeated Karachi Kings by 7 wickets. Multan’s bowlers choked the Karachi batting unit and restricted them to a modest total of 124/5.

Karachi batters never really got going on a sluggish pitch at National Stadium Karachi and lost wickets at regular intervals. Opener Sharjeel Khan top-scored with 43 while other batters did not offer substantial support. Multan’s veteran leg-spinner, Imran Tahir took three wickets for only 16 runs as he expertly used the pitch to his advantage.

Multan got off to a blistering start courtesy openers Shan Masood and Mohammad Rizwan who put on an opening stand of 38 runs. Rizwan stayed unbeaten on 52 and he was ably supported by Sohaib Maqsood who scored 30 runs as they guided their team to victory with 10 balls to spare.

Imran Tahir was awarded the player of the match award for his exceptional bowling performance.

Multan sit at the top of the table with their first victory.


Pre-Match

The seventh edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) is all set to begin tonight at the iconic National Stadium in Karachi with the home side Karachi Kings taking on defending champions Multan Sultans following a curtain-raiser opening ceremony.

The toss of the opening match tonight will feature two award-winning cricket stars in Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan.

Karachi’s new skipper, Babar was recently named the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year, while Multan’s captain, Rizwan won the T20I Cricketer of the Year award.

However, things would be much different for both sides.

For Karachi, they will have renewed energy with an overhauled outlook thanks to the new captain, Babar Azam, and the coach, Peter Moores, and the addition of so many valuable players.

The new management has brought back Chris Jordan and Lewis Gregory. They also have the services of Tom Abell, and the Somerset all-rounder, Tom Lammonby to strengthen their bowling and batting.

The new lot, when combined with the likes of Babar Azam, Mohammad Amir, and Sharjeel Khan will make Karachi a formidable side.

Multan, on the other hand, have further strengthened their batting with the addition of Australia’s Tim David, West Indian batter, Rovman Powell, and England fast bowler, David Willey, who will join the team after national commitments.

Further, they have a dynamic captain in the shape of Mohammad Rizwan, they have Shan Masood, as well as the PSL 6 hero, Shahnawaz Dahani.

The match will begin at 2 pm Pakistan Standard Time as both the teams take on each other. The match will be live-streamed here.

Match Details

Date Thursday, 27 January 2022
Time 07:00 pm PKT
Venue National Stadium Karachi
Live Stream LINK

Let’s have a look at the possible playing XIs:

Multan Sultans

Mohammad Rizwan (c)(wk), Shan Masood, Sohaib Maqsood, Rilee Rossouw, Khushdil Shah, Tim David, David Willey, Asif Afridi, Abbas Afridi, Rumman Raees, Shahnawaz Dahani

You can check out the complete Multan Sultans squad here.

Karachi Kings

Babar Azam (c), Sharjeel Khan, Sahibzada Farhan, Mohammad Nabi, Rohail Nazir (wk), Mohammad Taha, Imad Wasim, Umaid Asif, Mohammad Ilyas, Mohammad Imran Jr., Tom Lammonby

You can check out the complete Karachi Kings squad here.

Head-to-Head

Overall, the two sides have played nine matches in PSL so far, of which Karachi has won five while Multan has won only two. The two sides last came face to face on 10 June 2021 at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi, in which Sultans emerged as victors.

X-Factor

As discussed earlier, both sides have the best batters of the shortest format as their captains. While, the No.1 T20I batter, Babar leads Karachi, the No.2 on the list, and the ICC T20I Cricketer of the year, has the reins of Multan Sultans. The two will surely be the players to watch out for tonight.

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  • Multan Sultan has no player from Multan. So what are they representing?. Multan Sultan is owned by a Pushtoon Tareen family and 60 percent of their team is Pushtoon. So what is the purpose of this team when it is not representing local people?.

  • That Head to Head para and X-Factor para at the end were really nice and different from other writers. Great work there.


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