Karachi, Pakistan: Two-time champions Islamabad United beat Karachi Kings by 42 runs in their fifth consecutive defeat in the Pakistan Super League on Sunday.
Hosts Karachi, led by Pakistan T20 captain Babar Azam, will travel to Lahore next week without a single point for the final leg of the PSL. Another defeat will bring the team to the brink of elimination.
Islamabad captain Shadab Khan, who won the toss and opted to bat, continued his superb all-round form and extended his wicket tally to 14. Shadab scored 4-15 runs through his sharp legspin bowling, which restricted Karachi to 135-9. ineffective pursuit.
Earlier, Islamabad had built the Twenty20 top order 177-6 on a slow and dry wicket, with Paul Stirling scoring 39 in his last PSL game this season and Shadab scoring 34 off 19 balls.
Sterling is on her way back to Ireland for national duty. The opener scored 187 runs in five PSL games, which pushed Islamabad to No. 2 in the standings, four points behind Multan Sultans.
Babar said that his team needs more confidence.
Unfortunately, we’ve lost all the games so far, (but) I’ll try to give the boys more confidence going forward, said Babar, who took three brilliant catches in an otherwise down performance by his teammates.
I think we got some extra runs, but still I thought it was a chaseable score.
Injury-hit Karachi have struggled to challenge their opponents at home as their leading pacer Mohammad Amir was ruled out of the tournament without playing a game.
English bowler Chris Jordan (2–36) picked up two late wickets in his first game, both catches taken by Babar to dismiss Shadab and Colin Munro (33), before Azam Khan took Islamabad’s total. Played an innings of 16 runs in just 7 balls.
Karachi always struggled once Babar (8) and Sharjeel Khan (6) lost inside the batting powerplay. Sharjeel was run out in a mix-up with his captain, while pacer Mohammad Wasim returned Babar’s off-stump in the fifth over.
Shadab ran up the middle order with his sharp googlies and legspinner before Mohammad Nabi resisted an unbeaten 47 off 28 balls.
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