LAHORE, Mar 04 (APP):Islamabad United scored a thumping 71 runs victory against Lahore Qalandars in HBL Pakistan Super League match here on Wednesday night at Gadaffi stadium.
Islamabad first posted 198 for three in allotted overs after Lahore’s captain Sohail Akhtar won the toss and elected to field first. Lahore were dismissed at paltry 127 in 18.5 overs
With this success Islamabad continued its domination over Lahore by recording their second win victory against the home side whom they had earlier beaten in the opening match by one wicket on February 23 at the same venue.
It was Lahore’s fourth defeat in the event, out of six games played so far. Lahore upset fancied defending champion, Quetta Gladiators by 37 runs on February 3 at the same venue.
Man of the math, Colin Munro played an unbeaten master knock of 87 to build Islamabad healthy innings total for the delight of a lively crowd on a pleasant night.
As Munro built the innings his efforts were assisted by Luke Ronchi (48) and the pair of the openers shared 103 runs for the opening stand to give Islamabad a flying start.
Wicketkeeper batsman Munro played with authority and devotion and set the flow of runs of with his aggressive stroke play ,hitting eight fours and three sixes off 59 balls to defy all types of Lahore bowers who seemed helpless to stop the flow of Munro’s bat.
Lahore took a sigh of relief by breaking the stand by removing Ronchi caught by Samit Patel off the bowling of Muhammad Hafeez at a total of 103.
Ronchi smashed one six and six flowing boundaries in 31 balls to follow the foot prints of the top scorer.
As the partnership was broken ,Islamabad suffered another blow with the early departure of Shadab Kahn (113) which left them at 113 for 2.
Islamabad continued to get useful support from his batsman and a short lived 46 runs stand took their score to 159 before the pair was dislodged.
Run-hungry Munro joined Colin Ingram (29) for the stand and Lahore’s bowlers found it hard to restrict Islamabad from posting a decent innings total. Ingram quick fired runs had six hits through the fence off 19 deliveries as Asif Ali (20 with three fours and one six) remained unbeaten.
Salman Irshad, Muhammad Faizan and Mhammad Hafeez captured one wicket each for 43, 41 and 11 runs.
Lahore after their win against Quetta failed to struck their sparkling touch against Islamabad and most of its batsmen seemed out of touch.
Lahore met their same old chronicle problem of losing early wickets and its batsmen showed the same trend in the match and most of them failed to bat with application and confidence proving tamped victim to Islamabad accurate attack.
Lahore took a nightmare start being 1-0 and 2-16, the collapse started when opener Chris Lynn (0) departed and Hafeez (10) was the second batsman out.
Lahore got some relief when Ben Dunk (25) and Salman Butt (21) contributed 41 runs to launch recuse operation but failed to lead the side to comfort soon as the stand came to an end at a total of 57.
Dunk who ensured Lahore’s win against Quetta with a breezy knock ,this time failed to live upto the expectations and after his departure it seemed that confidence has vanished within the rest of the batsmen.
Six of their batsman including Chris Lynn (0), Samit Patel (6), Sohail Akhtar (8), Muhammad Faizan (6), Seekkuge Prasanna (6) and Salman Iqbal failed to progress to the double figures which speaks volume of Lahore tamed and jaded batting line up.
Tailender Usman Shinwari (30) with four fours off 11 balls was the top scorer of Lahore and through his meaningful batting he become an example of courage for his team’s top notch but flopped key batsmen.
Rumman Raees was the pick of Islamabad bowers snapping up three wickets for 29 runs. Zafar Gohar and Shadab Khan took two wicket apiece for 31 and 21 runs as Dale Steyn and Asif Javed got one wicket.