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- The two teams were striving to win the contest to improve their overall position in the T20 tournament
- Qalandars scored 199 runs before restricting the rival team to 170 for 9 in 20 overs
ISLAMABAD: Lahore Qalandars defeated Peshawar Zalmi by 29 runs in the nineth match of the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) T20 tournament that was played at the National Stadium Karachi on Wednesday.
Placed at the fourth and fifth positions on the points table respectively, Lahore and Peshawar were both striving to win the match to improve their standing in the overall contest.
Earlier, Zalmi won the toss and decided to bowl against Qalandars who have yet to secure a PSL title since the beginning of the league in 2016.
However, Lahore's opening batters, Abdullah Shafique (41 off 31 balls) and Fakhar Zaman (66 off 38 deliveries), were almost unstoppable and made a 94-run partnership.
Soon after Shafique was caught by Hazratullah Zazai on Usman Qadir's delivery in the nineth over, Qalandars lost Zaman on 114 while he was trying to hit a boundary.
Other Lahore batters tried to maintain the blistering pace of the innings and set a target of 200 runs at the loss of four wickets for the rival team.
Except for David Wiese who went for a duck, all Lahore players kept the strike rate high.
After outperforming Zalmi in the first phase of the game, Qalandars also managed to overpower them by not allowing the batters to set the pace of the innings.
Zazai lost his wicket without scoring a run, and only Kamran Akmal (41), Haider Ali (49) and Sherfane Rutherford (21) made decent individual scores in a bid to help their team.
Zalmi were 170 for 9 by the end of the match.
The ongoing PSL T20 tournament is played among six team, each representing a Pakistani city.
According to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), the seventh edition of the cricket contest has successfully attracted 80 million viewers around the world and has drawn significant corporate sponsorships from multinational firms in the country.