LAHORE: For all the grit and character that he showed here at the Gaddafi Stadium on Sunday night, Rassie van der Dussen found himself stranded on the non-striker’s end just when he should have been on the opposite side.

The South African had fought hard to take his team, Lahore Qalandars, to touching distance of their first win of the ninth edition of the HBL Pakistan Super League, having scored a brilliant century against Peshawar Zalmi.

For all of that, van der Dussen managed to face just one ball in the final over, in which the Qalandars needed 18 runs. The South African took probably the worse decision of his whole innings — accounting for an unbeaten 104 off 52 balls — taking a single off the second ball.

All of that for him to see his team-mates Jahandad Khan and Sikandar Raza lose wickets on consecutive balls off pacer Paul Walter, and Carlos Brathwaite wrapping things up with a straight hit for six, which did not matter at all as Zalmi won by eight runs.

Defending champions Qalandars couldn’t have come closer to get their campaign off the mark after taking two titles on the trot and face losing out on a place in the playoffs as they struggle to cope with captain Shaheen Shah Afri­di’s dipping form, Haris Rauf’s injury absence and the unavailability of strike bowler Rashid Khan.

Runs were scored in abundance against them on Sunday night, Zalmi amassing a relentless 211-4 on the back of a blistering 88 off 55 by Saim Ayub and crucial knocks from captain Babar Azam (48 off 36) and Rovman Powell (46 off 20).

With the bat, Lahore were much better, but they rode massively on the back of van der Dussen, who kept his cool and paced the chase with near-perfection before the hosts’ meltdown came in the final over.

Lahore had lost openers Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman early but van der Dussen had carried them to 56-2 by the end of the powerplay with Shai Hope at the other end.

After three overs without boundaries, Lahore managed one in the 10th to leave the scoreboard reading 84-2 at halfway stage with van der Dussen Hope trying to build a partnership.

Hope brought up the fifty for the pair with a six off Walter over square leg in the 11th over before van der Dussen registered his own half century as he smashed Walter for another maximum and followed that up with another boundary.

With 110 needed to win off 54 balls for Lahore at the point, the pressure was mounting up. And Babar reintroduced pacer Salman Irshad, who made Hope play a full ball onto his stumps to depart for 29 off 23 in the 13th over.

But van der Dussen was still fighting on, realising the importance of his presence on the crease. The right-hander pulled Salm­an for a six over fine-leg in the 16th over before Ahsan Hafeez added a boundary in it. van der Dussen went for another maximum in the next over but also saw Naveen dismiss Ahsan at the other end.

The incoming Jahandad did not let that bring down his team, as he used his immensely powerful wrists and a bit of luck to dispatch Salman for three boundaries in the 18th over.

van der Dussen brought up his 100 with a massive hit over midwicket off a full toss by Wood after hitting the Englishman for four to set up the last over, only to see his effort go in vain.

After being put into bat by Shaheen earlier, Pesh­awar went off to a blazing start as they raced to 57-0 by the end of the powerplay with Babar and Saim displayng an array of classy strokes all around the ground.

Saim hit the first six of the innings when he lifted Raza’s off-spin over deep midwicket in the seventh over. At halfway stage, Zalmi were cruising at 90-0.

Saim brought up his fifty in 36 balls after launching Mohammad Imran over wide-long on for another six. The 21-year-old went absolutely outrageous when he played an inside out off-drive to loft pacer Brath­waite for his fourth maximum, just before Babar hol­ed out to Sikandar in the deep to become Shaheen’s and the Qalandars’ first wicket.

The incoming Rovman Powell ensured Peshawar capitalised strongly on the blistering start, hitting three fours and two sixes in the space of eight balls to score 27 runs, four of those hits coming in Imran’s over, the 16th.

Lahore had their mome­nts, but a bit too late in the game, coming in Shaheen’s over, the 18th. The left-armer first destr­ucted Saim’s leg stump with a yorker to send him walking. A few lusty blows by Asif Ali and Moha­mmad Haris then took Pesh­awar to a towering total.

SCOREBOARD

Multan Sultans v Quetta Gladiators

MULTAN SULTANS:

Batters & modes of dismissals R B 4s 6s SR

Mohammad Rizwan c Saud b Hosein 51 42 2 4 121.42

Usman Khan st Sarfraz b Abrar 14 7 3 0 200.00

R. Hendricks c Wasim b Amir 72 47 7 4 153.19

Tayyab Tahir not out 35 22 4 1 159.09

Iftikhar Ahmed c sub b Amir 0 1 0 0 0.00

Khushdil Shah not out 1 1 0 0 100.00

EXTRAS (B-1, W-6) 7

TOTAL (for four wickets, 20 overs) 180

DID NOT BAT: D. Willey, Usama Mir, Aftab Ibrahim, Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Ali

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-22 (Usman), 2-101 (Rizwan), 3-178 (Hendricks), 4-178 (Iftikhar)

BOWLING: Hosein 4-0-30-1 (2w), Amir 4-0-46-2 (4w), Abrar 4-0-35-1, Usman 4-0-27-0, Wasim 4-0-41-0

QUETTA GLADIATORS:

Batters & modes of dismissals R B 4s 6s SR

J. Roy b Ali 12 15 1 1 80.00

Saud Shakeel c Usama b Willey 24 13 4 1 184.61

Khawaja Nafay c Usman b Ali 36 31 2 2 116.12

R. Rossouw c Khushdil b Aftab 30 18 1 2 166.66

Sajjad Ali c Rizwan b Usama 2 2 0 0 100.00

S. Rutherford c & b Willey 21 14 0 2 150.00

A. Hosein not out 9 13 0 0 69.23

Mohammad Wasim c Aftab b Willey 1 2 0 0 50.00

Mohammad Amir b Ali 12 8 2 0 150.00

Abrar Ahmed b Aftab 12 6 1 1 200.00

EXTRAS (LB-3, NB-2, W-3) 8

TOTAL (for nine wickets, 20 overs) 167

DID NOT BAT: Usman Tariq

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-16 (Roy), 2-42 (Saud), 3-104 (Rossouw), 4-107 (Sajjad), 5-124 (Nafay), 6-134 (Rutherford), 7-136 (Wasim), 8-152 (Amir), 9-167 (Abrar)

BOWLING: Ali 4-1-19-3, Willey 4-0-37-3, Abbas 4-0-33-0 (1w, 2nb), Usama 4-0-34-1, Aftab 3-0-26-2, Iftikhar 1-0-15-0

TOSS: Quetta Gladiators

RESULT: Multan Sultans won by 13 runs.

Peshawar Zalmi v Lahore Qalandars

PESHAWAR ZALMI:

Batters & modes of dismissals R B 4s 6s SR

Saim Ayub b Shaheen 88 55 8 4 160.00

Babar Azam c Raza b Shaheen 48 36 5 0 133.33

R. Powell c Fakhar b Jahandad 46 20 5 2 230.00

Asif Ali c Fakhar b Shaheen 6 3 0 1 200.00

Mohammad Haris not out 12 5 1 1 240.00

P. Walter not out 2 1 0 0 200.00

EXTRAS (LB-2, W-7) 9

TOTAL (for four wickets, 20 overs) 211

DID NOT BAT: Haseebullah Khan, L. Wood, Naveen-ul-Haq, Salman Irshad, Arif Yaqoob

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-136 (Babar), 2-175 (Saim), 3-181 (Asif), 4-209 (Powell)

BOWLING: Shaheen 4-0-33-3 (1w), Zaman 4-0-48-0 (4w), Ahsan 1-0-11-0, Imran 3-0-41-0, Raza 2-0-20-0, Brathwaite 4-0-34-0 (1w), Jahandad 2-0-22-1 (1w)

LAHORE QALANDARS:

Batters & modes of dismissals R B 4s 6s SR

Sahibzada Farhan c Haseebullah b Naveen 15 12 3 0 125.00

Fakhar Zaman b Wood 4 8 0 0 50.00

R. van der Dussen not out 104 52 7 6 200.00

S. Hope b Salman 29 23 1 1 126.08

Ahsan Hafeez c Saim b Naveen 20 13 3 0 153.84

Jahandad Khan c Babar b Walter 13 9 3 0 144.44

S. Raza run out (Saim) 1 1 0 0 100.00

C. Brathwaite not out 6 2 0 1 300.00

EXTRAS (LB-3, W-8) 11

TOTAL (for six wickets, 20 overs) 203

DID NOT BAT: Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Imran, Zaman Khan

FALL OF WICKETS: 1-17 (Farhan), 2-38 (Fakhar), 3-109 (Hope), 4-164 (Ahsan), 5-196 (Jahandad), 6-197 (Raza)

BOWLING: Saim 1-0-3-0, Wood 4-0-46-1 (1w), Naveen 4-0-50-2 (4w), Walter 4-0-41-1 (1w), Arif 3-0-21-0, Salman 4-0-39-1 (2w)

TOSS: Lahore Qalandars

RESULT: Peshawar Zalmi won by eight runs.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2024