Peshawar Zalmi defeated Quetta Gladiators by 76 runs at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Friday courtesy of a masterful innings by Babar Azam who scored a quickfire half-century and thrashed the the Quetta bowlers all over the park.
It was a great day for the Zalmi opening batters who just showed their aggression in the first innings. Saim Ayub became the batter with the most sixes (17) in the PSL 9 season and it was clear that the batter wanted to go for the kill as he scored 30 runs off 12 balls.
Rovman Powell scored a sensible 28 runs with 4 fours while Tom Kohler Cadmore scored 33 runs at a stunning pace with a strike rate of 173.68.
Sarfaraz’s exclusion from the lineup was surprising and it seemed like the skipper Rilee Rossouw was resting some key players in this game while testing his bench.
Akeal Hossein showed his brilliant discipline in terms of line and length with a magical bowling spell, picking up the first ever hattrick to name himself in the PSL history books. The West Indian finished with the figures of 4-25.
In reply, Saim Ayub took two crucial wickets of Rilee Rossouw and Khwaja Naffay to thwart the middle order batting order of Quetta Gladiators while Luke Wood also bowled an impressive spell of 2-21 in his allotted 3 overs.
Mehran Mumtaz was the most impressive bowler in his 4 overs as he picked up 2 wickets for just 22 runs.
In the end, the yellow storm dismantled the Gladiators as their batting order crumbled abysmally, and were bowled out for 120 in the 18th over.
Saim Ayub was awarded man of the match for his scintillating innings.
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