Islamabad United take on pumped up Zalmi

KARACHI: Buoyed up by their super win over Quetta Gladiators in their opener on Friday, Peshawar Zalmi will be looking to continue their winning streak when they lock horns with the former two-time champions Islamabad United in their second-round day fixture of the HBL PSL 2022 here at the National Stadium on Sunday (today).

The match starts at 2:30pm.

Zalmi on Friday did a marvellous job by conquering Gladiators by five wickets when they chased a 191-run target with just two balls to spare. Shoaib Malik (48*) and Hussain Talat (52) set up Zalmi’s win with their positive batting.

Young Yasir Khan, earlier, blasted a 12-ball 30 on his debut while opening the innings and set the tone. In bowling almost everyone of Zalmi’s bowlers struggled due to excellent batting from Will Smeed (97) and Ahsan Ali (73). Leggie Usman Qadir did a fine job and created some cracks in the middle by taking the wickets of dangerous-looking Ahsan Ali and Ben Duckett in one over that dented the Gladiators’ run-flow. Gladiators were a few runs short although after 15 overs it had seemed they would easily cross the 200-run mark.

If Wahab Riaz is available for today’s game then Zalmi will get a boost in their bowling attack.

Meanwhile, it will be the first game of Islamabad United in this event and it will be seen how they tackle Zalmi, who look a good side and have the experience of Shoaib Malik, who in the first match also captained the side in place of Wahab who missed the show because of his isolation following a Covid positive test.

Islamabad United, who won the titles in 2016 and 2018, are a dangerous side on paper. They are being led by the country’s fine all-rounder Shadab Khan, who has a massive experience of playing in T20 leagues around the world. They also have the services of Asif Ali, Azam Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Colin Munro, Danish Aziz, Mohammad Huraira and all-rounder Paul Sterling.

Hasan Ali will lead the bowling pack, which also features Mohammad Wasim Junior, Mohammad Musa, Faheem Ashraf, Athar Mahmood and spinners Zafar Gohar and Mubasir Khan, who both are also very good batsmen.

So far 16 matches have been played between the two teams in the PSL history with Zalmi winning eight and United ensuring victories in seven games. One match was abandoned. Here at the National Stadium both teams faced each other three times with Zalmi emerging victorious in two matches while United conquering their opposition once.

Both sides held training sessions on Saturday.

Aleem Dar and Ahsan Raza will supervise the match while Shozab Raza will be the third umpire, Imtiaz Iqbal fourth umpire and Mohammad Javed match referee.