LAHORE: Hyderabad Kingsmen skipper Marnus Labuschagne was confident of his team’s ability to “come back strong” after suffering a third straight defeat in Pakistan Super League (PSL) 11 on Wednesday.
Kingsmen, who suffered heavy defeats in their first two matches against Lahore Qalandars and Quetta Gladiators respectively, got off to a rousing start in their third match against Multan Sultans at the Gaddafi Stadium earlier today.
But Sahibzada Farhan’s unbeaten century helped the 2021 champions comfortably chase down the 226-run target with 4 wickets and 8 balls to spare, extending the Kingsmen’s unbeaten PSL run of 11 to three matches.
Reflecting on his team’s performance in the post-match presentation, captain Labuschagne insisted he was “very confident” that 225 was a defendable total, but praised Sultans’ openers Steve Smith and Farhan for scripting a blistering start.
“I think whenever you put 225 on the board, you’re pretty sure it’s going to be defendable. Obviously, that wasn’t the case tonight,” Labuschagne said.
“They batted beautifully. I thought the openers got off to a good start, which is what you need when chasing that kind of score,” he added.
The Sultans’ batsmen were also helped by the Kingsmen’s fielding failures in the run chase, and their captain Labuschagne admitted to laziness in that department but insisted the debutants had “big things” ahead of them despite falling short of the desired result.
“We probably didn’t take all our chances and that cost us. But we came back in this match and started to show intent. I thought Maaz and Saim were great; they set the tone,” continued Labuschagne.
“Then Sharjeel, in his first game, scored 50 off 25 runs in the middle order and Usman also came out and set the tone. I’m very proud of that innings. Even Muhammad Ali, I think his (second over) was fantastic. Even if we didn’t get the result, there were a lot of big things there.”
Marnus Labuschagne denied his decision to bowl the 15th over himself instead of Saim Ayub or Mas Sadaq, who went for 21.
“It’s our last game here, so we’re off to Karachi now for the rest of the tournament. I think I might be a little bit off about that 15th over; I might have seen Maas or Sime bowling then, but you look back on them,” Labuschagne said.
“We have to trust our abilities and work to do better.”
The right-handed batsman then went on to highlight the positives and insisted he was proud of his team’s effort before expressing his determination to mount a strong comeback in what he described as a long tournament.
“Yes, there are a lot of positives and I’m very proud of the effort the boys put in. Things didn’t go our way, but it’s a long tournament. We’ll come back stronger and learn some great lessons from this game.”