Midnight. March 5, 2017.Liberty Roundabout,Gulberg. Known as one of the benchmarks of the city, it forms the arterial route to Abdul Hafeez Kardar Way which is essentially the sports complex of the city that is the Headquarters of national cricket nowadays.The floodlights of Gaddafi have finally been illuminated and with it,the lives of many who chose to visit even in the wee hours for a glimpse of where the action would take place the following evening.
Its not uncommon to have a weekend ride to this areas its one of the hubs of activity.Tonight its decorated especially for the main event, as Gaddafi hosts a major final after 21 years. Simply unthinkable if one was there in February over the events that took place and its been six years since the tragic Lankan team attack incident took place.
The second season of PSL largely played out in the gulf to rising expatriate numbers from the previous year had the same five teams competing and despite the closeness in preliminary rounds, the same four made it to the final playoff spots. Along the way there was much interest generated as the matches were closer.From Eion Morgan and Riley Rossouw igniting the fire early on for Zalmi and Gladiators the two form teams of the tourney to the epic chases made by Kieran Pollard and Kevin Pieterson against Lahore Qalandars, it was wild ride that had many glued to their sets from early on.
Lahore despite being the venue of the final, didn’t have the best of rides again this year as their bowling was exposed on a number of occasions and the so called talent hunt of the past year didn’t materialise into winning points.Memo to Aaqib Javed -who is this Ehtesham Sultan ? Karachi Kings were able to improve on their earlier losses by beating Islamabad United in a crunch sequence of games that guided them to within a game of the final.They had eliminated them in their first eliminator.
Dwayne Smith and Rumman Raees led the way for the defending champions skippered again by Misbah ul Haq. Though Shadab Khan was one of the stars of the tourney with his spin for them, in the end they came up a notch less twice to Kings within a matter of days to lose momentum. Usama Mir emerged as a star for the Karachi side who also held the maroon cap with Sohail Khan and skippered by Kumar Sangakarra who left Quetta only to become more handier with his glove work more than his bat for a change in this PSL.Another Karachi recruit Chris Gayle was largely an afterthought as runs dried up well for them up top.
Quetta throughout the tourney had banked on spinners ,foreign talent in Rossouw and Kevin Pieterson as well as a welcome return to form of the local boy Ahmad Shahzad. Srafraz Ahmad had moulded a good side again and they were rampant in their tenure during the preliminary wins narrowly missing top place on net run rate to Zalmi in a final game loss.
Peshawar Zalmi led by Darren Sammy this year were boosted by an opening pair who had ended up scoring more than 500 runs between them, Kamran Akmal and Dawid Malan. Zalmi topped the standings with a close final day chase over Quetta, however the latter scored a nerve wracking win in the qualifier by a solitary run.On that occasion Muhammad Nawaz the rising star of last year capped an incredible final over to deny Zalmi an inevitable win chasing 201. He took 3 wickets in the last 3 balls.Kamran Akmal led the way with 353 runs as his recent domestic scores headlined huge powerplay starts. He ended with the Green Cap for scoring the most runs in PSL 2. His 100 in the clutch eliminator against Kings pushed Peshawar back into the final,where they would play last year’s finalists Quetta.
The final took us to the mainland despite much debate of holding it there and it was evident after Quetta’s win as their foreign contingent was adamant not to attend. Zalmi though proved otherwise having committed to playing Lahore as a unit under Darren Sammy and that factor rubbed more on the final as Gladiators hassled to get backups.
Unlike the gulf playoffs, which were high on entertainment with the closeness of matches , the final was much more about bringing cricket back home.It was like the city had a makeover.As the media frenzy increased following arrival of the foreign players, Zalmi appeared quite strong despite losing Shahid Afridi to a hand injury which endured him a rest from the final.As expected it was a full house. Viv had made the journey to a rousing Gaddafi lap of honour again with Quetta bringing back memories of the 1980’s.The 2 W’s enclosures were opened in the refurbished arena.
Zalmi had the most fans in all of PSL2 and it was telling in the final as well.Kamran Akmal and Dawid Malan got off to a good start but a collapse in the middle led to Zalmi struggling with 6/112 in the 17th over.Darren Sammy led effectively as a Zalmi cheerleader to the chief hitter scoring 28 crucial runs in heloing onto 148 score which is just par considering teams chasing second had been flying high.Quetta’s start with replacements was their worst with Ahmad Shahzad perishing early. Skipper Sarfraz made 22 but his wicket, 4th down at 29 was a killer blow.Young Muhammad Asghar rose to the occasion taking 3/16 in the final picking up Sean Ervine and Muhammad Nawaz in consecutive balls after sean had looked in good knick was with 24. The rest were cleaned up fairly easily with Wahab Riaz whose tally of 15 made him the second highest wicket taker. Quetta managed only 90, their worst score in this year’s tourney. Overall the final was an anti climax with so many by lines circulating.Cricket had triumphed for a change, though.
Zalmi much to the jubilation of the fans were crowned new champions.Darren Sammy had become the toast of Lahore and a hero in Pakistan for the night amongst high security and a packed Gaddafi.PSL finally came home to the people amongst its pomp atmosphere and the 70’s like crooned anthem of Ali Zafar.Yes, Ali….The people in the streets have truly arrived.The whistles have started,the stage is set and clapping resumes with the game hitting its prime where we left it all those years back.
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