SHARJAH: Lahore Qalandars’ top-notch pace attack was taken aback by the Sultans’ openers as the latter had all answers on every tactic adopted by the AB de Villiers-11 at the Sharjah Cricket Ground and put 200 runs on board.
The feared trio, Shaheen-Rahat-Haris, failed to give the much-needed timely breakthrough as opener James Vince managed to score 84 off 41 with seven boundaries and six sixes on a 204.87 strike rate before being dismissed by legspinner S Lamichhane.
The legspinner also took the crucial wickets of skipper Shoaib Malik and Andre Russel after conceding as many as 46 runs in his four-over quota.
After facing an injury blow to their captain Mohammad Hafeez, Lahore Qalandars have a new leader in South Africa’s AB de Villiers and a replacement in the form of Salman Butt, who will be playing in his first high-profile tournament since his high-profile ban for a spot-fixing scandal which erupted on Pakistan’s 2010 tour of England.
Lahore Qalandars
Fakhar Zaman, Salman Butt, AB de Villiers (captain), Sohail Akhtar, Salman Agha, Brendan Taylor, David Wiese, Sandeep Lamichhane, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Rahat Ali
Multan Sultan
sJames Vince, Laurie Evans, Umar Siddiq, Shoaib Malik (captain), Dan Christian, Andre Russell, Hammad Azam, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Ilyas, Irfan Khan, Mohammad Irfan
