PSL 3, Eliminator 2: Karachi Kings vs Peshawar Zalmi – Match Predictions

After a humdinger of a night yesterday, the PSL action will resume again at the Gadaffi Stadium tonight as the Eliminator 2 of the tournament will be played between the Karachi Kings and the Peshawar Zalmi. This is a virtual semi-final where the winner will earn the ticket to the finale, while the loser will go home.

The two teams will have a slightly different mindset walking into this knockout game. While Peshawar will be oozing confidence after the heist they pulled off against Quetta in Eliminator 1, Karachi will be under a bit of pressure after the whacking they received at the hands of the Islamabad United in the Qualifier.

Peshawar Zalmi and Karachi are currently leveled at 1-1 in terms of their head to head this season as both of them have beaten each other once. While Karachi registered a 5-wicket victory over Peshawar early on in the tournament, the men in yellow avenged it three weeks later with a massive 44-run annihilation.

Pitch and Conditions

The wicket at Gadaffi has offered a bit of grip to the bowlers in the past. The ball held up on the surface for a split second both off the fast bowlers as well as the spinners and the strokeplay, therefore, was a little tricky.

It was, however, more the case in the initial stages of the game and the reason behind it was not the sluggish nature of the wicket, but the dampness that was there in the surface due to rain. As the night progressed and the wicket dried up, the ball started skidding on a bit better.

Also, the ball got wet because of dew making it further tough for the bowlers and even though Quetta lost the game batting second, there’s no denying that they had far easier batting conditions at their disposal in comparison to Peshawar.

The advisable word for the captains for the toss tonight will be to bowl first as bowling second will mean assigning the bowlers a near-impossible job of defending a total with the wet, slippery white ball.

Playing Combination

Karachi Kings

Most of the overseas players of Karachi Kings have flown to Pakistan for this game. The one prominent name missing is Eoin Morgan who had actually captained Karachi in the last couple of games in the absence of Imad Wasim.

The left-hander withdrew citing security issues which is something the Karachi fans will be disappointed with, however it won’t affect the team that much as not only they have Imad back to resume the captaincy duties, they have another seasoned middle order player in the squad in the form of Ravi Bopara who can take Morgan’s place in the playing XI and can perform with the same efficiency.

Bopara for Morgan and Imad for Khurram Manzoor should be the two changes in the playing XI for Karachi. While these changes will surely elongate their tail a tad, it will give them 6 proper bowling options with 5 of them having international level experience.

Predicted XI: Tymal Mills, Imad Wasim (C), Usman Khan, Shahid Afridi, Colin Ingram, Joe Denly, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Ravi Bopara, Mohammad Irfan Jnr, Mohammad Amir

Peshawar Zalmi

Peshawar clearly looked a bowler short last night even though they eventually ended up on the right side of the stick. They went with Dawson as their 5th bowling option and he proved to be the weakest link as he was carted to all corners of the park. Darren Sammy will look to strengthen his bowling tonight which means Chris Jordan might be drafted into the XI.

Jordan is a wonderful death bowler with amazing control over his Yorkers which he recently showed in a couple of games of the Trans-Tasman T20 series where he delivered under pressure for England at crunch stages. If he comes in, it will result in the ouster of Andre Fletcher who hasn’t been that successful with the bat for Peshawar so far.

By going for an extra specialist bowler, Peshawar will lose a bit of depth in their batting, but they won’t mind it as they will back their 7 batsmen including the skipper Sammy to get the job done.

Predicted XI: Kamran Akmal (wk), Tamim Iqbal, Chris Jordan, Mohammad Hafeez, Saad Nasim, Darren Sammy (capt), Liam Dawson, Umaid Asif, Hasan Ali, Wahab Riaz, Sameen Gul

Probable Top Performers

Joe Denly (Karachi Kings), Sameen Gul (Peshawar Zalmi)

Head to Head

Matches – 7, Karachi Kings– 2, Peshawar Zalmi – 5

The timing of the match: 07:30 pm IST

Broadcast Details

TV – D Sport

The prediction is for the Peshawar Zalmi to beat the Karachi Kings in this match and make it to the final of PSL 3.