Pollard, Umar snatch seven-wicket victory from Sultans

DUBAI (Monitoring Desk): Keiron Pollard (52) and Umar Amin (54) drove Peshawar Zalmi to a seven-wicket victory over Multan Sultans in the eighteenth match of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) season four at Dubai International Stadium on Thursday.

Both the batsmen played brilliantly by scoring a partnership of 87 runs which took Zalmi over the victory line convincingly.

Sent to bat first, Sultans were off to a good start with their openers Umar Siddiq and James Vince putting up 38 runs on the scoreboard. It was Umaid Asif who broke the opening partnership getting rid of Umar Siddiq who scored 18 runs off 13 balls. Siddiq edged a straighter delivery from Asif which went straight in the hands of Akmal behind the stumps.

Later, Charles along with James Vince put 76 runs on the scoreboard to give a solid start to Sultans. Left-arm spinner Liam Dawson sent in-form Johnson Charles back home with by thrashing the stumps.

A perfect yorker from Hasan Ali thrashed the stumps to send Daniel Christian back to the pavilion. He scored 18 runs.

Hasan Ali, Liam Dawson, and Umaid Asif bagged a wicket each.

Zalmi, in reply, started with a new opening duo of Andre Fletcher and Imam-ul-Haq who went onto hit some early shots to give a decent start to their team. On 38 runs, Mohammad Irfan got his man Andre Fletcher which built some pressure on the men in yellow. He walked off after scoring 24 runs off 14 balls.

Young pace sensation Mohammad Ilyas then pitched the bowl up to get Kamran Akmal bowled on naught. Shahid Afridi got rid of Imam-ul-Haq who came down the pitch but misjudged the ball completely and it went straight to Tom Moores behind stumps who did a great job. He made 39 runs.

Later on, Pollard and Umar made the chase an easy task for their team. Mohammad Irfan, Shahid Afridi, and Mohammad Ilyas took a wicket each for Sultans.