Shan Masood, Blessing Muzarabani fashion Multan Sultans’ 42-run win

Like Muzarabani, Khushdil Shah also grabbed three wickets, as he cleaned up Zalmi’s tail

Multan Sultans 182 for 7 (Masood 68, David 34, Wahab 2-34) beat Peshawar Zalmi 140 (Malik 44, Muzarabani 3-18, Khushdil 3-25) by 42 runs

Zalmi had won the toss and inserted Sultans in, and for the first half of the innings, seemed to have a handle on the game. Rizwan wasn’t his usual bustling self at the start, happy to play second fiddle to Masood, whose sensational form this PSL shows no signs of abating. Six fours in his first 14 balls, including three successive boundaries off Mohammad Umar in the fourth over, got Sultans off to a speedy start, thus more than making up for Rizwan’s sluggishness.

Sultans continue to give the impression of every game having a new hero, as Thursday’s brightest star came from Zimbabwe. Muzarabani got into Zalmi in the second over of the chase, removing both Kamran Akmal and Haider Ali in the space of four balls. Akmal’s dismissal came thanks to a spectacular catch by Shahnawaz Dahani, who knocked a diving Rizwan out of his way to hold on, before Haider chopped one on to his stumps.

It seemed as if Zalmi were playing catch-up from that point on, though Sultans were guilty of allowing them back into the game with a couple of dropped catches. Abbas Afridi put Liam Livingstone down at mid-off in what could easily have been the game’s turning point, as a giant six by the Englishman over mid-on next ball showed.

But no one from Zalmi could really hang in and play the sort of innings Masood had. Afridi made amends for dropping him by getting rid of him a few overs later, something which dried the runs up for Sultans. The next 16 balls saw just ten runs scored, and that pressure brought about the end of Hussain Talat.

Muzarabani returned to have Sherfane Rutherford caught on the off side, and Shoaib Malik’s 31-ball 44 came to an end when he finally holed out to cow corner off Imran Tahir’s bowling.

By then, the asking rate was well over 13, and Ben Cutting was once more left in an impossible position, just as he had against the same opposition a few days earlier in Karachi. He did what he had done then, giving poor Dahani another pasting, but as on that day, the best he could hope for was an improvement in his personal statistics.

Khushdil did for him thanks to a smart catch from David, before a stunning diving grab from Khushdil himself off his own bowling put paid to the Zalmi innings altogether. It was an apt way to finish a game, the individual brilliance topping up what had been a brilliant team performance.