The last two games between these sides provided one of the best games of the Pakistan Super League — it had the first super over of the PSL — that game saw the start of Islamabad United’s unbeaten run which continued to three matches at the end of the game against Lahore on Thursday afternoon.
Misbah-ul-Haq won the toss and elected to field first, the Dubai pitch looked a truer batting surface than the first leg and did offer something for the leg spinners. Steven Finn returned to the side in place of Andre Russell who prior to this game had been ruled out of for the rest of the tournament.
1st Innings
Lahore Qalandars had a new opening pair in Anton Devcich and Fakhar Zaman, and like most of its opening combinations, it did work well as they raced to 47 runs in the first 5 overs of the innings. Fakhar being extremely brutal on the bowlers with his pull shots and lofted shots over the inner circle.
Anton Devcich’s role in the opening partnership was to rotate strike to dangerous Fakhar Zaman, but as soon as Fakhar was dismissed it was Devicich who took on the role of the big hitter. While Devcich was batting with Fakhar he had scored 19 runs in 16 balls, his next 11 balls saw him gather 31 runs. It was this role reversal which saw Lahore add another 47 runs in to get 94 runs in the first 10 overs.
Agha Salman was struggling to score runs out in the middle as he faced Shadab Khan and Steven Finn, but the slow crawl continue as Dinesh Ramdin who did not score a boundary in the whole tournament ensured that he didn’t add one in this game slowed down the momentum scoring 9 runs in 20 balls.
Brendon McCullum walked out at 5 and he added 33 runs in 12 balls, his innings was what Lahore needed but then it came a bit too late as Lahore Qalandars could just add 69 runs in the final 10 overs. This was Lahore Qalandars’ highest total of the season though and they had reasons to be optimistic as well.
2nd Innings
Duminy and Ronchi continued to open for Islamabad and things went off well for them, the opening partnership saw 47 runs being scored in 27 balls. A good start for Islamabad United in a chase where the required run rate was 8.2 RPO.
But the game turned in the next 5 overs, first, there was the promotion of Shadab Khan and there was the Ronchi assault. The required run rate at the end of the 5th over was 7.73 runs per over, at the end of the 10th overs the required run rate was down to 4.90 runs per over, thanks to Ronchi (37 runs in 14 balls) and Shadab Khan (23 runs in 17 balls), both these batsmen targeted the weaker Lahore bowlers and made them pay for bowling poor lines.
Shadab Khan eventually finished with 32 runs in 24 balls, a smart knock in a chase where his role was to support Luke Ronchi. Luke Ronchi ended up with 77 runs in 41 balls, which saw him get to his 50 runs in 22 balls which is the joint fastest in the PSL.
Luke Ronchi was selected to provide good starts when batting first and to crush the chase, he has shown how easily he can crush the chase with his big hitting; his last two innings have seen him score 148 runs at 11.40 runs per over. Largely thanks to his chase Islamabad now have 3 wins in 3 games and 4 wins overall.