KARACHI: Quetta Gladiators captain Saud Shakeel expressed his disappointment after losing to Peshawar Zalmi by eight wickets in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) 11th 23rd match at the National Bank Stadium on Wednesday.
Batting first, the Gladiators could muster a modest 154 before being bowled out in 20 overs, but despite a spirited start, the batting powerplay amassed 54/2 as they lost wickets at an alarming rate in the middle stages and at the back.
Middle-order batsman Hasan Nawaz cautiously attempted to bowl out 37, but the previous edition’s runners-up eventually settled for an even total at the bottom as Zalmi’s Sufyan Mukeem and Abdul Basit refused to recover with three wickets each.
Reflecting on their forgettable performance in batting, Gladiators skipper South admitted that his team fell well short of the even score of 175 runs in his opinion.
He further asserted that the Gladiators are repeating the same mistake of losing too many wickets in the middle stages.
“It was easily a 170-175 pitch. We are repeating the same mistakes, losing more wickets in the middle and as a result, we are stuck between defense and attack,” South said in the post-match briefing.
“We sit, talk and make game plans, but I think we got too confused with tactics to forget the basics. I think we have made a lot of changes, we will try to fix the flaws and improve our performance,” he added.
In turn, the Chiefs made light work of chasing the target of 155 runs with the loss of just 2 wickets and 9 balls.
Helped by an opening partnership of 75 runs between Mohammad Harris and captain Babar Azam, Zalmi made a sumptuous start to the chase, which saw the former bowled out by South in the ninth over.
After giving the Gladiators a much-needed breakthrough with the ball, South immediately brought on mystery spinner Usman Tariq, but Zalmi had already amassed 79/1 in nine overs and needed 76 off 77 balls.
But the Gladiators captain insisted that Tariq’s introduction to the attack was not too late, insisting instead that they want to take the game deep and they believe the mystery spinner can give them repeated breakthroughs to turn the game around.
“That wasn’t the case. We tried to take the game deep and thought we could get wickets again late in the game,” South explained.
“But if we don’t have enough runs on the board, teams don’t take extra risks against the spinners, which reduces the chances of taking wickets,” he concluded.