Multan Sultans skipper Mohammad Rizwan was disappointed after his team’s two-wicket loss against Islamabad United at the Pindi Club Ground, Rawalpindi on Tuesday. MS posted a par score of 205 runs on the board after Shadab Khan won the toss and decided to bowl first.
In fact, MS could only 32 runs in the last four overs of their batting innings and thus they could not finish on a high despite having all the momentum on their side. On the other hand, the Mohammad Rizwan-led team could not stem the flow of runs at the fag end of their bowling innings, conceding 55 runs in the last four overs.
Faheem Ashraf played a match-winning knock of 51 runs from 26 balls as he smashed five fours and two sixes. This was the highest run-chase in the history of the PSL for ISU.
Mohammad Rizwan said in the post-match presentation, “If you look from the start, we are looking at 220 but they bowled well,we did not finish well and credit to Faheem Ashraf for his innings. The pitch is a belter and luck was with them, we did not finish well with our bowling. The difference was the 20 runs we did not get at the end while batting. The last two matches we lost, all those weaknesses were fixed today but we lost due to the finishing.”
ISU skipper Shadab Khan showered praise on Faheem Ashraf but urged his bowlers to come up with a better show in the upcoming matches.
Shadab Khan said: “The way Faheem played and we know the caliber of him and he is showing it out there. Wasim and Farooqi brought the momentum back in our death overs, at one stage it looked like it will go to 230-240. Our batting is strong but our bowling is better than this to not consistently leak 200 every game. We shuffled the batting order today so that at the end of the tournament players like Faheem, Asif, and Mubasir are coming in with form. If you get in on these pitches, it’s very difficult to contain.”
Faheem Ashraf was awarded the Player of the Match for his blistering knock, which helped ISU seal the deal. He said, “I want to thank the almighty for helping me around. The plan was to take it deep and keep trying to take it till the end. Got to back yourself up and go with the required rate every over and Wasim helped a lot.”
Multan Sultans will next face Peshawar Zalmi on Friday.
