Sikandar Raza drags Lahore Qalandars to unlikely win

Qalandars lost seven wickets inside the first half of their innings but somehow recovered to win by nine runs

Lahore: Lahore Qalandars 148, Quetta Gladiators 131-7 - Lahore Qalandars win by 17 runs

Lahore Qalandars produced a superb bowling performance to beat Quetta Gladiators by 17 runs despite having been 50 for 7 in the tenth over of their innings.

Qalandars were rescued by the excellence of Sikandar Raza, who dragged his side from serious strife to a final total of 148, with the Zimbabwe international making an unbeaten 71 in just 34 balls on a night where every other batter struggled.

Will Smeed, who smashed 32 for Quetta, was the only other player on either side to pass 27.

Gladiators must have thought the game was all but won when Mirza Baig, Fakhar Zaman, Sam Biillings, Hussain Talat, Abdullah Shafique, Shaheen Shah Afridi – curiously coming out to bat at No.6 and David Wiese – all departed inside the first half of Lahore's innings.

But Raza belatedly found a willing ally in Rashid Khan, with whom he added 69 in just 6.3 overs as an unlikely recovery was mounted.

^{Lahore Qalandars won from nowhere (Arif Ali/AFP via Getty Images)}

Khan eventually holed out to long-on for 21, but Raza was still able to add 29 runs for the final two wickets. There might even have been more but for Zaman Khan's poor runout in the last over that curtailed the innings.

Quetta looked set to race to victory in response, with Smeed's fast start ensuring they took 53 runs from the powerplay.

But Yasir Khan fell to the final ball of the sixth over, which got Qalandars going and enabled them to stifle Quetta's reply: Martin Guptill (15) offered a catch to Shafique off Wiese, by which point Smeed had been trapped in front by Rashid as he looked to pull a googly that kept low and Mohammad Hafeez had been run out by a direct hit from Fakhar at short fine leg.

They ground to a halt thereafter, with Rashid and Wiese turning the screw in the middle and Rauf exceptional at the death.

Sarfraz Ahmed ended 27 not out in 28 deliveries but could only find the boundary once as Gladiators, who were only seven wickets down, fell short in a game they looked certain to win for long periods.

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