LAHORE     -    Sensational half-century by Kieron Pol­lard powered Multan Sultans to HBL PSL 8 final after they registered a thumping 84-run victory over Lahore Qalandars in the Qualifier here at the jam-packed Gaddafi Stadium on Wednesday night. 

Multan Sultans have the honour of mak­ing it to the PSL final for the third consecu­tive year. Despite having all-out support of home crowd, Lahore Qalandars couldn’t start their run-chase well and kept on los­ing wickets on regular intervals, thus were bundled out for a meager 76 runs in 14.3 overs. Mirza Baig (8) and Abdullah Shafiq (0) lost their wicket quickly at a total of 15 runs. Opener Fakhar Zaman (7) also failed to deliver for Qalandars and was bowled by Anwar Ali at 19-3 in 3.5 overs. 

At this crucial stage, Captain Shaheen Afridi came to steady the ship of Qalan­dars but he too was sent packing by Cot­trell in the fifth over of the match. Hussain Talat (4) also couldn’t contribute some big runs in the team’s total and was run out by Usman Khan. When the Qalandars fans were expecting a big knock from Sikandar Raza, he also disappointed them by scor­ing just 1 runs and at that time, Qalandars were reeling at 43-6 in the 10th over. 

After that, only David Wiese and Haris Rauf entertained home crowd with some beautiful shots but they also failed to help their side cross the triple figures and the entire team was bowled out for paltry 76 runs in 14.3 overs. Wiese struck 12 runs and Harif Rauf 15. For Multan Sultans, Shel­don Cottrell was main wrecker-in-chief of Qalandars batting line up as he clinched 3 wickets for 20 runs in three overs. 

Earlier batting first on a difficult wicket, Multan Sultans were off to a slow start but later their players played some sensible and powerful innings to post a decent total of 160-5 in the allotted 20 overs. Kieron Pollard was hero (player) of the match as he played 34 balls to smash 57 runs that included 1 boundary and 6 sixes. 

The other key contributors in Multan Sultan’s total were captain Muhammad Rizwan, who cracked 29-ball 33 runs with the help of 3 fours while Usman Khan played 28 balls to score 29, hitting 4 fours and Tim David made 15-ball 22 runs with one four and one six. Haris Rauf claimed 3 wickets for 34 runs while Rashid Khan and Zaman Khan bagged one wicket each. Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi will face each other in the Eliminator 1 today (Thursday) while the loser of the Qualifier and the winner of the Eliminator 1 will clash in the Elim­inator 2 on March 17. The grand finale of the PSL 8 will be played at the iconic Gaddafi Stadium on March 19.