Multan Sultans have raced into the Pakistan Super League playoffs with an easy win over Karachi Kings at the National Stadium in Karachi on Sunday. Well powered by Usman Khan's hundred, the Sultans made 189 in the first innings before restricting the home side to 169. With this, they have become the first team to reach into the PSL playoffs after securing six victories in seven games.
The Kings were without Kieron Pollard, who travelled to India for the pre-wedding function of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant. In his absence, the Kings brought Leus de Plooy into the Playing XI and also replaced Anwar Ali with Mir Hamza. However, they missed Pollard in a big way as the Kings were always playing catch-up in the run chase. Chasing a target of 190 and a required rate of 9.50, they lost key batters Tim Seifert and James Vince pretty early. When Shoaib Malik and skipper Shan Masood tried inflicting hope into the home side, they lost the former for 38 in the 12th over with the team only at 89.
Even though they were hanging to not let the required rate go out of hand completely, the Kings hit their first six in the 14th over after going five down. That did not help things either as by then the required rate had crossed 12 and the Kings had only five wickets in hand. Mohammad Nawaz, Irfan Khan and Hasan Ali tried doing the improbable but things went out of hand as they slumped to a 25-run loss.
Usman Khan, who made 96 in Multan's previous match, got to his three-figure mark this time around with a stellar knock of 106* from 59 balls. Apart from him, captain Rizwan made 58 from 44 balls to power the team to a handsome total of 189.
Multan are the first team to reach the PSL playoffs. They are the table-toppers of the season and have lost only one game to Peshawar Zalmi. Meanwhile, Karachi Kings have 2 wins in their 6 games.
