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Lahore Qalandars’ troubles were further compounded after they received another beating at the hands of Multan Sultans at Qaddafi Stadium on Tuesday.
Chasing a mammoth target of 215, thanks to a superb 96 off 55 by Usman Khan who played his first game of this year’s Pakistan Super League edition, Lahore got bundled out for 154, primarily because of Multan’s frontline leg-spinner Usama Mir who picked up six wickets for 40 runs.
Despite a decent start to the chase, Lahore struggled to keep the momentum up once Multan broke the opening partnership.
With Fakhar Zaman being the first Lahore wicket to fall, nobody from the top and the middle-order was able to convert their starts.
For Lahore, Sahibzada Farhan top scored with 31 off 21 with Fakhar scoring 23, the centurion from Lahore’s previous game Rassie van der Dussen 30, Kamran Ghulam 12, and Sikandar Raza managing only 17 runs.
In yet another bizarre move by Lahore, captain Shaheen Shah Afridi came ahead of the West Indian star allrounder Carlos Brathwaite who was only sent in when the game was all but over for Lahore.
For Multan, the pick of the bowlers was Usama Mir who has further solidified his position as one of Pakistan’s leading leg-spinners going forward to the T20 World Cup.
Lahore’s bowling was also very disappointing despite having made early inroads when an Afridi special inswing bowled at full length got rid of the Multan Sultans captain Mohammad Rizwan for a duck.
That remained the only silver lining for Lahore who continued to struggle throughout the rest of the game.
Multan was playing with two foreign players, due to niggle to three of their overseas players. However, that did not stop them from cementing their position further as the leaders on the points table.
Multan’s batters, especially Khan, had a really good outing with him smashing 11 4s and two 6s. He was well supported at the other end by the South African Reeza Hendricks who scored 40 off 27, Tayyab Tahir who scored 21 off 14, and Iftikhar Ahmed who played a brilliant cameo of 40 off 18.
With zero wins out of the total six they have played, Lahore’s qualification chances for the playoffs are virtually over. They would need certain results to go their way even if they win the rest of their games by decent margins.