PSL 2018, Match 24: Lahore Qalandars vs Karachi Kings – Match Predictions

The Karachi Kings after going through a dull period for a while made a powerful comeback in PSL 3 last night as they crushed the Multan Sultans by 63 runs and not only enhanced their points’ tally, but improved their net run rate too by quite a bit. On the back of this result, they will be feeling good now ahead of their tonight’s encounter where they will take on the Lahore Qalandars.

The Lahore Qalandars have nothing to lose. Their chances of finding themselves in top 4 are out of the window and they can basically only play the party spoilers for the other teams and that makes them a dangerous proposition in the remaining part of the tournament. They may produce an absolutely fearless brand of cricket.

Probable nature of the pitch

This is going to be the last match of this season’s PSL which will be played at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. While the curators came up with some really poor surfaces at this venue earlier in the tournament, they have recently come up with some good ones too.

The surfaces in the last few games have been nicely rolled in with no element of abrasiveness at all. The good spinners, the wrist spinners, in particular, have still been able to fetch something, but there hasn’t been a lot of grip for each and every slow bowler and as a result, it’s been easy going for the batsman as they have played through the line of the ball.

The captains should look to bat first again as there hasn’t been a lot of dew involved in any of the matches of the tourney. The conditions have remained fairly similar in both the innings and the norm has been to choke the opposition under the pressure of big runs on the board.

Playing Combination

Lahore Qalandars

After suffering 6 losses in a row, the Qalandars put on an inspired performance the other evening and it was led by the left armer Shaheen Shah Afridi who is tipped as the next big thing of Pakistan cricket. Shaheen was a little lackluster in the initial stages of the tournament, but with that devastating spell, he showed he belongs to this level. He well and truly made the match-winning difference and Brendon McCullum won’t mind another spell of that sort from the young man if he can dish it out again.

In a surprising move against Multan, McCullum changed his batting position and batted 5 probably because of the lack of experience down the order more so in the absence of Umar Akmal and he played a handy knock of 30 odd safely guiding the Qalandars to the modest target of 115. There is no doubt that he is at his lethal best opening the batting, but for the sake of the balance of the composition, he may keep himself down at 5.

Anton Devcich who opened the innings at the place of McCullum gave the Qalandars an absolute flyer of a start as he raced to 20 odd in virtually no time and his role going ahead should be the same which is to put a bit of impetus into the innings early on.

The 24-year old Agha Salman who has looked promising without doing anything significant consistently so far also has a role to play as he has been given the number 3 slot now.

Predicted XI: Brendon McCullum (c), Gulraiz Sadaf (WK), Sunil Narine, Agha Salman, Yasir Shah, Anton Devicich, Mitchell McClenaghan, Sohail Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Shaheen Afridi, Sohail Akhtar

Karachi Kings

Karachi had a near perfect game against Multan as they were able to do exactly what they would have wanted to do, with both bat and ball. While they went hard up top batting first, something they had been struggling to do in the tournament, the middle order maintained the similar kind of scoring rate in the post powerplay period as well before Colin Ingram finished the innings expertly.

And then Shahid Afridi, one of their trump cards, in the bowling department made sure that Multan could never lay the ideal platform for the chase to get underway properly as he gave them three crucial blows and completely broke the backbone of their batting. However what the Karachi skipper Imad Wasim would be specifically happy with is the fact that his 5th bowler Mohammad Irfan Jnr bowled well too and managed a couple of scalps.

Mickey Arthur and Imad will urge the boys to push for another big performance tonight as one more win here will put them in a great position with regard to the knock-outs qualification.

Predicted XI: Ravi Bopara, Lendl Simmons, Usman Khan, David Wiese, Colin Ingram, Joe Denly, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Imad Wasim (c), Mohammad Irfan Jnr, Mohammad Amir

Probable Top Performers

Shaheen Afridi (Lahore Qalandars) | Lendl Simmons (Karachi Kings)

Head to Head

Matches – 5, Lahore Qalandars – 1, Karachi Kings – 4

The timing of the match: 09:30 pm IST

Broadcast Details

TV – D Sport

The prediction is for the Karachi Kings to beat the Lahore Qalandars in this match.