Twitter Reactions: Karachi Kings struggle to chase down 139 as Lahore Qalandars register maiden win

After the first three games of the PSL 04 were high-scoring ones, the doubleheaders on Saturday witnessed batsmen find it hard to pile up big totals. The game between the Lahore Qalandars and the Karachi Kings only saw an aggregate of 254 runs scored in 39.5 overs. For the first time in the season, a team batting first won the match.

The Lahore Qalandars, even though put only a meagre score on the board, was exceptional with the ball. They never let the Karachi batsmen find the right momentum and kept plucking out wickets at regular intervals. This resulted in a 22-run victory, their first of the season.

The top order scores some valuable runs for the Lahore Qalandars

It is relatively easier to bat against the new ball on the Dubai pitch. The top three batsmen in the Lahore Qalandars line-up made the most of it and piled some important runs. These three men only accrued 93 runs together which was about 67 per cent of the team’s total.

While Fakhar Zaman and Anton Devcich scored almost run-a-ball 26 and 28 respectively, Sohail Akhtar was the pick of the lot. He played aggressive cricket to stretch his score to 39 which came off just 25 balls. It got tougher to bat as the ball got older and the team only managed to put up 138 runs on the board in 20 overs for the loss of 6 wickets.

Haris Rauf sparkles with a four-for

Even though it seemed as if the Karachi Kings will blow the total down in a jiffy, they found it to be extremely hard. The bowlers were on the top and Shaheen Afridi dismissed Liam Livingstone for only 11 runs early on. However, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan tried to build a partnership and put on 47 runs together. Babar Azam was the first to perish after a struggling 38-ball 28.

Colin Ingram, Ravi Bopara and Rizwan were also dismissed within a span of 10 balls. After these massive blows towards the business end of the game, the Kings could never revive themselves. They lost the last five wickets for just five runs and therefore were bundled out for 116 runs. The side fell short of the target by 22 runs as Haris Rauf picked up four wickets in the game. Meanwhile, Rahat Ali and Shaheen Afridi accounted for 3 and 2 wickets respectively.

Twitterati didn’t seem to be as pleased with this low-scoring encounter. The fans expected the Karachi Kings to chase the target down. However, that wasn’t possible and the fans were all praise for Haris Rauf and co.

Here is how Twitterati reacted:

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