Dawson lifts Zalmi in PSL eliminator

LAHORE: Liam Dawson produced an innings par class to provide Peshawar Zalmi a fight total of 157 against Quetta Gladiators in the first eliminator of the Pakistan Super League here at the Gaddafi Stadium on Tuesday night. In the presence of moderate crowd, mild conditions with cold wind blowing, Zalmi manufactured an impressive score after going on the back foot despite the fact that the game was nearly marred by rain.

Though Quetta was starless but still they kept their act together to start with an upper hand in the match. Had Dawson not played a brisk innings of innings 62 the interest in the match would have evaporated. Tamim Iqbal 27, Mohammad Hafeez 25 and by the fag end of the innings Wahab Riaz’s 15 were enough for Zalmis to pommel Quetta’s attack. Dawson in fact snatched the initiative away from Quetta which almost nailed Zalmi in the initial phase of the match. He produced small partnerships with Saad Nasim, Umaid Asif and Darren Sammy to lift the score from five for 86 to 137 for seven. And before heading back to the pavilion, Dawson had 62 runs on board that came off 35 balls and laced with 10 boundaries, for of them were sixes. By the time he departed, Zalmi was well in control of the match with fighting 137 for eight.

Earlier, the play stopped just after four balls were bowled in the very first over and resumed after around 15 minutes for the organisers to maintain 20 overs. After being sent into bat, Tamim Iqbal and Kamran Akmal opened the innings for Peshawar Zalmi while Mohammad Nawaz began the bowling.

Tamim hammered two beautiful boundaries, both over short fine leg, one off the second and the other off the fourth ball from Nawaz before the rain interrupted again.