Gladiators captain rues few bad deliveries

SHARJAH: In the first two editions of the HBL Pakistan Super League, it seemed as if anything that Sarfraz Ahmed touched turned to gold.In the inaugural contest he lifted the Quetta Gladiators — PSL’s least expensive franchise — and guided it to the final. Last year, too, his team whisked in the title clash and only lost in the title clash in Lahore because of most of its foreign stars refused to play in Pakistan because of security concerns.

This year, however, things aren’t really going Sarfraz’s way. There are fears that he could be losing his Midas touch.

His team crashed to its second defeat in PSL 3 from a position where it should have won against defending champions Peshawar Zalmi.The Quetta Gladiators were undone by Zalmi captain Darren Sammy, who stood and delivered — on one leg — as Sarfraz watched in dismay.

The Quetta captain later said that a few “bad balls” pulled the game out of his team’s grip. However, he hailed his players for making a stunning return in the match.“We almost had completely lost the match but the way our fast bowlers — John Hastings and Shane Watson — made the comeback was very commendable,” Sarfraz told reporters in his post-match conference.

Sarfraz, who came under criticism for giving the crucial final over to medium pacer Anwar Ali instead of in-form spinner Mohammad Nawaz, defended his decision to choose pace over spin.“If the fast bowler had bowled in the right area we could have returned in the match. We made a comeback due to fast bowlers so we took a chance,” he said.

“You never know if the spinner had been there. Anything could have happened.”Quetta are yet to display the sort of form that they exhibited in the previous two editions and Sarfraz acknowledged that his team needs to lift its game in the coming matches.“Batting needs to be worked out. Only Shane Watson has played 50-run inning, the top-order is yet to show a big innings in the tournament,” he commented.