Quetta Gladiators’ Jason Roy plays a shot during their Pakistan Super League match against Lahore Qalandars at the National Cricket Stadium in Karachi on Monday.AFP

Jason Roy smashed quick-fire 116 off just 57 balls to help Quetta Gladiators beat Lahore Qalandars by seven wickets in a thrilling Pakistan Super League match in Karachi on Monday. Batting first, the Qalandars had scored 204/5 in 20 overs but Roy’s sublime innings, which was studded of 11 boundaries fours and 8 sixes, took the match away from them.

No bowler of Qalandars was able to hold the charged Roy from sending the balls to the boundary. Gladiators chased down the 205-run target in 19.3 overs. Earlier, the Qalandars got off to a flying start with openers Fakhar Zaman and Abdullah Shafique going after the bowlers right from the word ‘go’ as the duo added 61 runs for the first wicket stand before the latter was run out for 32 off 27 balls just when it appeared that both of them would take their team to a mammoth total by showcasing a fantastic batting display.

Zaman scored 70 off just 45 deliveries and was also the top-scorer for Lahore. Following Zaman’s dismissal in the 17th over, the Gladiators heaved a sigh of relief but impactful knocks from the middle-order duo of Harry Brook and David Wiese powered Lahore to a huge total of 204/5 from their allotted 20 overs.

Brook hit unbeaten 41 off 15 deliveries while Wiese scored 22 runs off nine balls. Ghulam Mudasar was the pick of the bowlers for the Quetta with figures of 2/43 from his four overs at an economy rate of 10.8 while Luke Wood and Iftikhar Ahmed finished with 1/45 and 1/10 respectively.

Agencies