RossouW’s 75-RuN help MultaN sultaNs thRash teaM ZalMi

MULTAN stAff RepoRt

MULTANSultans defeated Peshawar Zalmi by 56 runs in the fifth match of Pakistan Super League (PSL) at Multan Cricket Stadium on Friday with an outstanding 75 runs of Rilee Rossouw. Zalmi won the toss and decided to field first. Batting first, Multan Sultan’s openers Muhammad Rizwan and Shan Masood started with a confident partnership of 54 runs before Shan Masood was caught behind on Irshad’s delivery by scoring 20 runs.

The Sultan team Captain Muhammad Rizwan kept on putting pressure with hitting unstoppable boundaries. He contributed 66 runs in the total after he was dismissed by Muqeem. Rossouw’s 75 runs inning helped Sultans to set a target of 211 with 23 runs of miller and 15 runs of Pollard.

Chasing the target, the Zamli’s went under pressure when Captain Babar Azam was LBW in the first delivery of Ihsanullah’s first over by scoring 9 runs leaving his team at 41/1.

The partnership of Haris and Saim Ayub stabilized the batting line up when Haris was run out after scoring 40 runs. Saim Ayub gave and outstanding performance

7th edition of ‘National Women, Men Road Cycling Championship’ begins

pESHAwAR stAff RepoRt and scored 53 runs before he was bowled on Usama Mir’s turning delivery. Ihsanullah and Usama Mir of Multan Sultans took three wickets each. Rilee Rossouw was declared man of the match.

The 7th edition of the National Women, Men Road Cycling Championship Elite and Junior competitions got underway under the aegis of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Cycling Association and with the collaboration Pakistan Cycling Federation (PCF) on Northern Bypass here on Friday. President of Pakistan Cycling Federation Syed Azhar Ali Shah, President of KP Cycling Association Nisar Ahmad, international technical official Sarmad Khan, and international technical official Syed Nazakat Ali Shah were also present. The 7th edition of the National Women and Men Cycling Road Championship will continue up till February 20 in which more than 110 national and international cyclists from all 12 units including Pakistan Army, Pakistan Wapda, Pakistan Railways, Crank Addicts, SSGC, PCF Technical Official team, POF Wah, Bikestan Cycling Academy, GilgitBaltistan, Islamabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are taking part. Earlier, Caretaker Minister for Industries Adnan Jalil graced the occasion as chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony wherein Secretary Sports Captain (Retd) Mushtaq Ahmad and Director General Sports Khalid Khan gave away medals to the individual Time Trials winners in both Women and Men categories. There was a loop of 13.5 km in the 7th edition of the Championship. The Championship is also very important for the International Road Cycle Race to be held in Thailand in June because out of the race, a team from Pakistan would be short-listed purely looking after the performance of the cyclists.

‘Team Zalmi to work for fielding improvement’

Meanwhile, Peshawar Zalmi’s opener and wicketkeeper Muhammad Haris said that the team would control mistakes and work on the fielding in order to improve performance.

Holding a press conference after the match on Friday at Multan Cricket Stadium, the top-order batsman said that misfielding and no balls by bowlers enable Multan Sultan to set a strong target.

He said the players have been fined over misfielding and no balls in the last match.

Haris said his run-out was his own fault there was no mistake by his partner Saim Ayub. He termed the run-out as the turning point of the match and added that he could make the target easy for the team if it had not happened.

To a question, he said the pitch of Multan was fast as compared to Karachi.

He said it was planning to restrict Sultan’s at a total of 190 runs maximum but they managed to set a strong target because of misfielding.