There are defeats, there are collapses, and then there is what Multan Sultans had to endure in Lahore on Monday: an absolute carnage. It was more of a public undoing than a match.
Chasing a target of 90 runs, Quetta got over the line with 79 balls to spare. This is the biggest win by balls remaining in PSL history. Somewhere between the first ball and the last, Multan Sultans ceased acting like a cricket team.
It all began with a serene first over, where Mohammad Amir conceded a boundary and five dot balls. All was normal. It was calm. But the sort of calm that signals the coming of a storm. Khurram Shahzad, the ever-so-polite, baby-faced but murderous, pulled the top order apart in less than 3 overs. He didn’t need any support from the other end. Just the new ball doing its magic with the bit of swing it was getting. He got rid of two in his first over and another two in his second. Multan’s batting lineup, who were busy impersonating ninepins, didn’t have a better retort.
The highlights read like a necrology list: Yasir Khan, caught at mid-on. Usman Khan, went big, went home. Curtis Campher, as plummed an LBW as it gets. Kamran Ghulam, nicked it off to the slips while wondering what year it was.
Rizwan was the only batter to hold on, or more precisely, stay on. Rizwan, ever the good captain, carried his bat, but largely to witness the wreckage unfold firsthand. He also ran out two partners in two subsequent over, all while trying to keep the strike and stop things spilling away so quickly but couldn’t quite do so.
Everything went down exponentially for Multan. Faheem Ashraf and Mohammad Wasim Jr. cleaned up the tail. Multan didn’t play bad cricket. They played no cricket whatsoever. Just 89 runs on the scoreboard, most of which looked accidental.
And then Quetta’s turn to chase the target. If you blinked, you missed it.
Saud Shakeel and Finn Allen came out fully armed with their hair nicely combed back and sleeves rolled to get the task done. The first two overs were polite. And then all hell broke loose. The openers behaved like they didn’t want to be late for a dinner reservation. Allen dispatched David Willey into the stands twice in the third over. Shakeel hit Hasnain for boundaries for fun, and then the duo went full throttle on Ubaid Shah, who’s had a decent season, but it was not to be his night. The remaining attack was similarly served up and sent flying.
Quetta amassed 74 runs in the Powerplay. Multan’s body language in the field told everything about how they were feeling. The winning runs came with a six, of course, because what else?
Multan now have six losses in seven games and they have made the bottom place on the table, their permanent home this season. Their net run rate has hit a new low, and realistically, their journey this season is over unless PSL introduces a reset button or a second-chance round.
