Lahore Qalandars thump Gladiators in PSL

Shaheen Shah Afridi dealt two early blows and Fakhar Zaman continued his rich run of batting form as Lahore Qalandars inflicted a crushing eight-wicket defeat on Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League on Sunday.

Left-hander Fakhar (53 runs off 42 balls) scored his fifth half century - to go along with his century against Karachi - as Lahore romped to 143-2 in 17.4 overs.

Made to bat first, Quetta had to settle for a below-par total of 141-7 after Afridi removed Jason Roy and James Vince, both without scoring, in his superb first over of the match.

Fakhar hit six boundaries in his seventh PSL game this season and stretched his runs tally to 469 to be the leading run-scorer in the tournament before he skied a slog-sweep to midwicket in the 16th over.

Kamran Ghulam remained unbeaten on 55 and led Lahore’s strong chase by sharing a 77-run second-wicket stand with Fakhar.
Quetta had relied heavily on Roy’s power-hitting in their previous two wins. But the Englishman gloved behind off Afridi’s second delivery, and Vince was clean bowled the next ball, and Quetta struggled to put up a challenging total.

After its fifth win in seven games, Lahore occupies second spot in the table with 10 points behind Multan Sultans, which has 12 points. Quetta has six points.

Associated Press