PSL 2018, Match 22 Review: Afridi and Denly gift Karachi Kings a crucial victory

With the tournament approaching the business end of the tournament, the Karachi Kings have registered a crucial win on Saturday. Multan Sultans have been the team to watch out for in the initial part of the season, but now, they’ve registered three consecutive losses and are no more at the top of the PSL table.

Batting first, Karachi Kings lost Lendl Simmons very early. Simmons struggled to find his feet and eventually, got dismissed in the 4th over. But Joe Denly stitched an important partnership with Babar Azam, which steadied the ship for the Kings. Both players approached the innings cautiously in the first few overs, but later on, they got going pretty well.

Denly has been a decent T20 player for a long time and his worth was pretty evident in this game. A few of the shots he played were a reminder to people that no matter which format you’re playing, class always tops the charts. It was a classy knock from the English cricketer, taming the bowlers at will and was sending the ball to the boundary quite easily.

Babar Azam too came good in this crucial encounter and played a handy knock. His ability to play in the T20s was under severe scrutiny, but in the last few months, he has been outstanding. He added 118 runs for the second wicket with Denly and they got these runs at a good rate.

Colin Ingram gave them a superb finish, striking four big sixes in the final two overs. The Kings finished with 188 runs on the board, which is quite humongous on a ground like Dubai with long boundaries.

Vintage Shahid Afridi!

It was a performance which reminisced people of the old Afridi, who would bowl quick and trouble the batsmen with his subtle turn. After a long time, the fans were palpably delighted to see their iconic figure deliver a high calibre performance like this.

Kumar Sangakkara and Ahmed Shehzad have formed a decent opening pair this season. They once again managed to give them a good start. The duo added 43 runs for the first wicket and threatened to take the game down to the wire. But they lost three quick wickets, which pulled them into trouble. Sangakkara, Sohaib Maqsood, and Shehzad fell in a span of 11 balls, which didn’t help their cause.

Then entered Shahid Afridi into the scene and started picking up wickets right from the outset. The way he managed to rattle the stumps of Shoaib Malik, Kieron Pollard and Saif Babar was a visual treat for any purists of the game. Afridi was class apart and he made a huge difference in the middle overs.

A couple of runouts added to the misery of the Sultans and in no time, they were reduced to 99/9. Sohail Tanvir hit a few lusty blows towards the end to reduce the win margin for the Kings. But that was completely immaterial as they handed a massive 63-run win to the Kings. Sultans find themselves in a slightly vulnerable position right now and they need to bounce back to avoid complications.

Brief Scores

Karachi Kings: 188/3 in 20 overs (Joe Denly 78, Babar Azam 58, Hardus Viljoen 2/49)

Multan Sultans: 125 all out in 19.4 overs (Sohail Tanvir 34; Shahid Afridi 3/18, Mohammad Irfan jnr 2/18)

Player of the match: Shahid Afridi

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