Peshawar Zalmi played some brilliant all-round cricket to clinch the Pakistan Super League 2017 in Lahore on Sunday, defeating Quetta Gladiators by 58 runs. This was Gladiators' second straight PSL final, but they were yet again outdone by their opponent when it mattered the most.
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The Gladiators did miss their foreign players including Kevin Pietersen, who decided to skip the final in Lahore due to security concerns. However, one should not take anything away from Peshawar and their splendid performance.
With Quetta winning the all-important toss, they decided to field and asked Peshawar to bat. Kamran Akmal, who had come into this final with immense confidence after a brilliant hundred in the last match, top-scored with 40 runs from Peshawar.
All other batsmen including Marlon Samuels and Mohammed Hafeez also started well, but they could not build upon their start, losing their respective wickets for 19 and 12 runs. However, some solid batting from skipper Darren Sammy, who hit 28 runs from 11 balls, at the end, helped Peshawar reach a score of 148 runs.
Though the score was not massive, Quetta always had to start well with the bat, and unfortunately, they could not. Peshawar bowlers were on the money with the ball and dismissed the top order for cheap runs. Quetta were tottering at 13 runs for the loss of three wickets, with Van Wyk, Anamul Haque and Ahmed Shahzad back in the hut.
With such a poor start, Quetta were always going to face an uphill task to reach the target. The major problem for Quetta was that none of their batsmen could stay at the crease for long and they lost wickets at regular intervals.
Quetta never really recovered from their early wickets loss and were dismissed for 90 runs only. Mohammad Asghar was the pick of the bowlers for Peshawar, picking up three wickets to steer his team to an impressive Pakistan Super League title victory.
