Multan Sultans win toss, invite Lahore Qalandars to bat

Multan Sultans Friday won the toss and invited Lahore Qalandars to bat first in the 17th match of the seventh edition of the Pakistan Super League at the Gaddafi Stadium Lahore.

The clash is between the third-placed Qalandars on the PSL 7 points table and lagged far behind from the table-toppers Multan Sultans.

Multan Sultans are runaway leaders in the current edition of the PSL and have already qualified for the playoffs. They had remained undefeated in their last six matches. Qalandars have so far lost two matches.

It should be noted that this is for the second time that the two sides are facing each other in this year's PSL, with Sultans toppling Qalandars when they first met in Karachi.

The Sultans sealed an emphatic victory over the Zalmi yesterday night to make it six victories in a row. They are the side to beat in this competition, there is no doubt about that, and one of the teams that came close to overthrowing them in Karachi was the Qalandars.

The Sultans managed to squeeze through a nail-biting encounter on the back of Khushdil Shah's last-over heroics. Lahore Qalandars will be yearning to avenge that loss at their home turf and return to winning ways after receiving a shellacking from Quetta Gladiators in their previous game.

Both the Qalandars and Sultans remained unchanged. Sultans captain Muhammad Rizwan yesterday hinted at trying the bench strength in the remaining matches but have decided against it.

Lahore Qalandars Playing XI: Fakhar Zaman, Abdullah Shafique, Kamran Ghulam, Mohammad Hafeez, Philip Salt (wk), Harry Brook, David Wiese, Rashid Khan, Shaheen Afridi (c), Haris Rauf, Zaman Khan

Multan Sultans Playing XI: Shan Masood, Mohammad Rizwan (c)(wk), Sohaib Maqsood, Rilee Rossouw, Tim David, Khushdil Shah, Anwar Ali, Abbas Afridi, Imran Tahir, Blessing Muzarabani, Shahnawaz Dahani