KARACHI: Luke Ronchi and Asif Ali pumped quick runs into the scorecard to guide Islamabad United to telling victory against Peshawar Zalmi in the high-voltage grand finale of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) season 3 in Karachi on Sunday.
In pursuit for 149 runs target, Ronchi’s blistering fifty set the momentum, but immediately after his wicket was thrown a domino-effect of falling of wickets was witnessed on one side, as only Sahibzada Farhan had his wicket intact for quite a longer run, until Kamran Akmal’s costly miss off Asif Ali’s strike on 14.4 overs.
From here unbeaten Asif (26 from 6) launched a crazy onslaught to make it one-sided match with three back-to-back maximums off Hasan Ali. United successfully chased the score with 3.1 overs to spare.
“Hard hitting is my natural game. The coaching staff encouraged me to play that way. Pressure was of course there, but I have won a number of matches for Faisalabad playing this way. Playing under pressure gives me a lot of enjoyment. My friends say that you are made for big games,” said Asif Ali.
Shadab Khan was instrumental in the game as he took three wickets for 25 runs in four overs, which had two back-to-back wickets of Darren Sammy and Umaid Asif that dented them severely.
Wahab Riaz’s late blitz took Peshawar Zalmi to a competitive total of 148/9.