PSL 2021: Multan Sultans complete remarkable turnaround to book spot in final

Multan Sultans’ new-found affinity with Abu Dhabi continues to grow as they booked their place in Thursday’s HBL Pakistan Super League final with a resounding 31-run win over Islamabad United.

When the league was suspended in Pakistan back in March because of a Covid outbreak amongst some of the teams, Multan were second last in the table, and seemingly out of the playoff race.

By the time the league had been rescheduled and relocated to the UAE, they had been deprived of a number of their original squad, and had to go searching the globe for replacements.

Once the matches restarted in the capital, last season’s runners up knew they could scarcely miss a step if they were to make the knockout stage.

Remarkably, they have won every match since. Now they are the first team through to the final, having dispatched an Islamabad side who had been without equal in the league phase of the tournament.

All is not lost for Islamabad. They face a second chance in the last eliminator match on Tuesday. An extra day of rest before the showpiece will be gratefully received by the Multan players, though.

There was no shortage of skill on show in the qualifier playoff. But it does feel increasingly apparent this competition is becoming the survival of the fittest.

In the two days between the end of the league phase and the start of the playoffs, the humidity had ramped up appreciably. As the qualifier got under way at 5pm, the feels-like temperature was well into the 40s Celsius.

Whether it is more taxing being a batsman or a bowler in such conditions is open to debate.

Hasan Ali, for instance, might have just had four overs to bowl, but it was tough going. For a number of overs in the middle of the Multan innings, the fast bowler fielded with a makeshift cooling device wrapped around his head.

Having a towel straight from the ice box balanced underneath his cap did not prove the most failsafe solution, though.

Sure, it probably kept him slightly cooler, but he did botch the simplest boundary stop – letting a four from Shan Masood through his legs – while wearing it.

None of the Multan batsmen stayed in the heat for longer than the 41 balls Sohaib Maqsood faced. And his dismissal was in part due to the sweaty conditions, too.

Only 13 of his 59 runs had involved moving between the wickets, as he continued his fine run of belligerent hitting in this tournament with three sixes and seven fours.

When he was finally undone, top-edging Faheem Ashraf to short fine leg, his bottom hand slipped off the bat. Maqsood had already changed his gloves a number of times in his innings.

It made sense that the batsmen were happy to stand and swing. Johnson Charles hit a mammoth six over the grass bank at midwicket, and Hasan Ali made for quite a sight, scooting off to retrieve it while still wearing his hat-come-keffiyeh combo.

Charles laced 41 in 21 balls, and then Khushdil Shah took up the baton to give Multan a vital late-overs push. The left-hander blazed four sixes in a row in the penultimate over of Multan’s innings.

In reply, Usman Khawaja continued the extraordinary form which brought him a century when Islamabad set a PSL record highest score in the league phase.

The Australian opener hit 70 in 40, but support for him at the other end was meagre. When he became the third wicket to fall to the left-arm pace of Sohail Tanvir, Islamabad’s chances of chasing 181 to win were all but at an end.