PSL 2021, Match 2: Lahore Qalandars vs Peshawar Zalmi - Kamran Akmal’s record, Shaheen Afridi’s milestone and more stats

Lahore Qalandars have registered a victory against Peshawar Zalmi in the second match of the Pakistan Super League of this season. Lahore’s captain Sohail Akhtar won the toss and invited the Peshawar team to bat first. Peshawar had a terrible start as they lost their opener batsman Imam-ul-Haq in only the first ball who got out for a duck. Captain Kamran Akmal too could not stay long and was dismissed for a score of 5 runs off 10 balls. 

Ravi Bopara scored a wonderful fifty for the team and took them to a respectable total of 140/6 in 20 overs. Amad Butt too played a handy knock of 23 runs off 11 balls. Shaheen Afridi took 3 wickets for only 14 runs in his 4 overs. Rashid Khan who made his PSL debut gave only 14 runs in his 4 overs though he did not get any wicket.

Chasing this total, almost all the batsmen of Lahore Qalandars got starts but the team kept losing wickets at regular intervals. In the end, Mohammad Hafeez and Rashid Khan ensured victory by stitching an important partnership of 34 runs for the seventh wicket. Hafeez scored 33 not out of 26 balls while Rashid smashed 27 runs off 15 balls.

Let’s look at important stats and numbers from the second match of PSL 2021 :

Kamran Akmal catches up again

1542 – Kamran Akmal could only score 5 runs in this match, but he made sure he gets back the crown for scoring the most runs in PSL history. He now has 1542 runs in the league and has surpassed Babar Azam (1540 runs). Babar had earlier toppled Kamran in the inaugural match.

Milestones for Shaheen Afridi

2 – Shaheen Afridi took the wicket of Imam-ul-Haq on the very first ball of the innings. He became only the second bowler after Mohammad Nawaz to dismiss a batsman on the very first ball more than once in PSL.

5 – Shaheen Afridi took his fifth 3-fer of PSL. He has now become the youngest bowler in the league to complete five 3-fers.   

Ravi Bopara’s Feat

4 – Ravi Bopara played a fine knock of 50 runs off 44 balls with the help of 6 fours. This was his fourth fifty in PSL. He is now joint-top among English cricketers with most half-centuries in PSL. Kevin Pietersen and Jason Roy are the other English players on this list.

Failure for David Wiese

34 – Before this match, David Wiese had the highest average (38.85) in PSL among players who have played a minimum of 10 innings. However, after getting out for a duck, his average has dropped to 34. Tamim Iqbal has now reached the top spot with an average of 37.81 in 20 matches.