Rilee Rossouw’s men defeated Islamabad United by 3 wickets at the Gaddafi stadium in a thrilling match which saw Quetta Gladiators maintain their flawless start to PSL season 9.
Quetta Gladiators won the toss and elected to field first in the eighth Pakistan Super League match of the season. The men in purple dominated the proceedings with their spin duo of Akeal Hossein and Abrar Ahmed who kept on taking wickets at regular intervals.
Akeal Hossein took two crucial wickets of master blaster Alex Hales and pinch hitter Azam Khan while the spin wizard of the Gladiators Abrar Ahmed took 3 wickets for just 18 runs.
In the death overs, the fast bowling duo of Muhammad Amir and Wasim Junior helped Quetta Gladiators restrict Islamabad United to 138-9. Wasim Junior also picked up three wickets in the death overs.
Salman Ali Agha was the only batter who played according to the situation and batted sensibly, scoring 33 runs with a strike rate of 143.48 while maintaining his good form for Islamabad United.
In the second innings, Islamabad United fought back hard and reduced the men in purple to 54-4 when Shadab Khan dismissed the former Gladiator’s skipper Sarfraz Ahmed for just one run.
Naseem Shah bowled a fiery spell of 4 overs and dismissed two dangerous batter,s Saud Shakeel and Sherfane Rutherford. Jason Roy smashed the bowlers all across the park and scored 37 off 18 balls.
The game changed drastically after a controversial DRS decision when Salman Ali Agha appealed to dismiss Rossouw, a decision which could have changed the result of the match.
Skipper Shadab Khan bowled a brilliant spell to take the game down to the wire and picked up 2 wickets to bring drama to the match. Sherfane Rutherford also played a sensible knock of 29 to keep the innings together with a couple of mighty blows.
Rilee Rossouw was named man of the match for two catches and his 34 not out off 38 balls to bring Quetta home.
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