When the most set, experienced and talented batsman on the pitch doesn’t take the strike in the last over when his team requires 23 runs to win the match, there could be no other explanation to it than calling it Bizzare! Kings needed 38 from the last two overs, having not been able to get on with the chase earlier on. But instead of taking the strike in the last over, Babar tried to run a double on the last ball, and run got Chadwick Walton, his partner for the last 77 runs, most importantly of just 45 balls.
With that run out two things happened, Walton, a set man was out and Babar the other set man was off strike in the last over with the team requiring 23 to win. What happened next was even worse. Thisara Perera, the new man, slogged the second ball of the last over, after missing the first one, and was caught on the boundary, but Babar didn’t even bother to change ends. In fact, shocking as it might be, Babar didn’t play even a single ball in the last over.
In the end, Babar’s 63 ball 85 could do no good to his Karachi Kings as they couldn’t get to the target of 177 set up by Multan Sultans in the first game of the doubleheaders day in the Abu Dhabi leg of Pakistan super League’s sixth edition. Even after a brilliant knock such as this, Babar cannot run away from the blame for not taking the responsibility of finishing the game.
However, even after such dismal planning and execution by his senior pro, Babar, Imad Wasim, the Karachi skipper wasn’t ready to put the blame on him. “There was nothing wrong with the way we played, Babar is a class player and he usually does well for us,” he said in the post-match presentation.
However, Babar must be credited for his instrumental knock in the sense that he was able to take the team close to the target even after a disastrous start to the chase. Chasing 177, Sharjeel Khan, supposed to be the go-getter of the two among him and Babar was run out at the team score of 14. After that Martin Guptill and Babar tried to get the team back, but it took a lot of time and a lot of balls for that.
Just when Guptill started to get bat on the ball, he was tricked by a googly from Imran Tahir. The 40-year-old mad celebrator had another chance to dance wildly as he removed Afghan Najibullah Zadran to put Karachi in all sorts of trouble. But after that came Walton and he paired up with Babar to keep the Kings in the hunt.
Earlier in the day, Multan Sultans, after being asked to bat first, got going from the very beginning. Even after Rahmunullah Gurbaz got out early, Sohaib Maqsood and Rilee Rossouw kept powering on with their big shots and skipper Mohammad Rizwan held one end up. The Sultans reached 100 in just the 10th over. The 33-year-old South African was awarded man of the match for his 24 ball 44.
But soon after that, both Rizwan and Rossouw got out in the 11th over, putting the Sultans in a spot of bother. Shimron Hetmyer followed suit as well. From 107-2 in 10 overs, Sultans were suddenly 130 /5 after 15 with all-rounder Khushdil Shah and more bowler than batter Sohail Tanvir at the crease. Instead of getting bogged down by the pressure, the two rather counter attacked the opposition, gathering 45 from the last five, with 19 coming off a Mohammad Amir last over.
Perera was the pick of the bowlers for Karachi with two wickets for 13 runs in his three overs. Surprisingly, the Sri Lankan didn’t bowl his full quota of overs.
This was only the second win for the Sultans in six games and skipper Rizwan was chuffed about it. “We didn't think about the uncontrollable, so we just gave our best and ended up on the winning side. We tried deciding according to the conditions - 4 pacers, and 1 spinner, and we'll keep deciding according to the conditions in the future matches,” he said in the post-match interview.
In their next game, the Sultans will be up against Peshawar Zalmi while Karachi Kings would have a three-day rest and would come back at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi to face Islamabad United on June 14.