Raipur: Umar Akmal played a stunning cameo of 18-ball unbeaten 38 as Lahore Lions beat defending champions Mumbai Indians by six wickets in their opening qualifying round match of the Champions League Twenty20 here on saturday.
Put into bat, Mumbai produced a mediocre batting display as they could score just 135 for seven with Aditya Tare top-scoring with a 37 and the Pakistani side comfortably chased down the target with eighth balls to spare.
Ahmed Shehzad (34) and Nasir Jamshed (26) laid a good platform by stitching 51 runs for the opening wicket but they looked like losing way in the middle overs as Mumbai came back strongly on the back of some fine bowling and fielding.
Lahore needed 26 runs from the last three overs and the match headed towards a tight finish though they had six wickets in hand.
But, Akmal turned the game on its head with a superb show of batting as he struck four fours and two sixes from 18 balls in his unbeaten knock as Lahore ran away with a win as they reached 139 for four in 18.4 overs.
Coming out at the fall of Saad Nasim (6) in the 14th over, Akmal laid low for a while before opening up. He hit two fours in the 16th over off Kieron Pollard and then ended the game with two fours and a six in the 19th over bowled by Jasprit Bumrah. He ended the match in style with a four.
Lasith Malinga's 18th over cost 15 runs with Akmal hitting a six and that settled the issue in favour of Lahore Lions.
For Mumbai, Pragyan Ojha took two wickets for 18 runs while Harbhajan Singh and Pollard got one each.
