PSL 2018, Match 15: Islamabad United vs Karachi Kings – Match Predictions

No luck for Islamabad United against the Kings either.

Published - 04 Mar 2018, 13:29 IST | Updated - 04 Mar 2018, 13:29 IST

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The Karachi Kings and the Islamabad United encounter will be the last game of the Sharjah-leg of this season’s PSL as the action will shift back to Dubai again for the remaining part of the group stage before the teams fly to Pakistan for the knockouts and the final.

Sharjah has provided quite a lot of entertainment in the last few days with plenty of games going right down to the wire and the viewers will hope that tonight’s game turns out to be the same as the Islamabad United and the Karachi Kings are set to take the field on a Sunday evening.

The Karachi Kings are topping the points table at the moment as they have won 3 out of their 4 games with one being washed out. The Islamabad United, on the other hand, is placed at no. 5 with 2 wins out of 4.

With the tournament moving into its second half now, Islamabad will want to make an upward climb and get themselves in top 4. While Karachi’s aim will be to steady themselves at the top and make sure they remain well ahead of the rest.

Probable nature of the surface

The wickets of late at Sharjah have not been as flat as we normally associate with this venue. In the past couple of games, the batsmen have found it extremely difficult to time the ball as the ball has held up on the surface and has turned considerably too on a regular basis.

However with a slight bit of dew setting it late in the evening, batting in the second innings has been that much easier and with small boundaries being a key factor too, it makes fielding-first a profitable prospect than batting first.

Playing Combination

Islamabad United

There is no doubt that the Islamabad United aren’t batting as well as they should, but the fighting spirit they showed in the previous game to stop the Lahore Qalandars from getting over the line chasing a modest target of 122 and then to come out and beat them in Super Overs, it would have inserted a lot of positivity in that locker room.

Yes, there are plenty of areas to improve in the batting department which includes sorting the batting order as well and the team management will be better off addressing those issues sooner rather than later. Hussain Talat is clearly batting too low down the order for somebody of his ability and he is probably the one who should bat 3 instead of JP Duminy.

Duminy is clearly struggling to milk the spinners through the middle overs and he should ideally be assigned the finisher’s role as he can do a better job in the death overs against the quick bowlers. Also, Islamabad may entertain the idea of opening the batting with Asif Ali instead of Sahibzada Farhan who is looking slightly out of touch.

Predicted XI: Mohammad Sami, Misbah-ul-Haq(C), JP Duminy, Luke Ronchi, Andre Russell, Steve Finn, Asif Ali, Hussain Talat, Sahibzada Farhan, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf

Karachi Kings

For Karachi Kings, it’s been almost a dream run so far. Barring Babar Azam who is having a bit of a tough time at no. 3, everybody is playing well and it’s hard to spot a weakness in that team at the moment. The leadership has been magnificent too as Imad Wasim has taken a liking to the captaincy and is strongly presenting his case as a potential future leader for Pakistan if they need one.

Karachi just has to take care of the fact that they don’t get too complacent and take it all for granted because it doesn’t take long for a team to lose momentum in this format of the game. They need to keep playing their Cricket with the same intensity as they have been so far. If they do so, with the quality they have at their disposal, they will win more often than not.

With Shahid Afridi injured, Karachi had made a change in the XI for the last game against Multan and had included Mohammad Amir. That game, however, got abandoned due to rain, but they are likely to go with the same unit against Islamabad as well.

Predicted XI: Ravi Bopara, Khurram Manzoor, Mohammad Amir, Joe Denly, Colin Ingram, Tymal Mills, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Imad Wasim (c), Mohammad Irfan Jnr, Mohammad Amir