This year’s season of the Pakistan Premier League has been filled with excitement. Ranbanya’s tournament record was broken and another team broke the record. If the final of such a busy event is not exciting, what else is suitable? It happened. Lahore Qalandars won the title after defeating Multan Sultans in a thrilling final.

Lahore Qalandars won the title for the second time in a row by defeating Multan Sultans by 1 run in the final of this season of PSL at the traditional Gaddafi Stadium on Saturday (March 18). Lahore scored 200 runs in the allotted 20 overs by batting earlier. In response, Multan stopped at 199 runs after losing 8 wickets in the stipulated over. Lost the final for the second time in a row by just 1 run.
Multan had a chance to avenge the 42-run loss to Lahore in last season’s final. Lahore-Multan will face each other in this final as last time. Lahore captain Shaheen Afridi won the toss and decided to bat first. Despite Mirza Tahir’s pace, Fakhar Zaman’s slow batting did not slow down Lahore’s run rate much. Lahore scored 38 runs losing 1 wicket in five overs. Tahir Beg departed after scoring 30 runs off 18 balls. He hit 5 fours as well as 1 six. Fakhar-Abdullah Shafiq added 57 runs in 6.2 overs for the second wicket pair. Fakhar departed with 39 runs from 34 balls with the team scoring 96 runs. Sam Billings failed with the bat that day. This English left after scoring 9 runs in 8 balls. At this time, Lahore’s run was 111 in 13.4 overs.

Lahore lost two more wickets without adding 1 run to this run. Billings and Ahsan Bhatti were sent back byꦚ Usama Mir for two consecutive balls. Sikandar Raja, who scored 1 run, was dismissed by Khushdil Shahrꦦ. But Lahore turned around again from here. Joining Abdullah Shafiq, captain Shaheen Afridi created a storm with the bat. When Shafiq departed after scoring 65 off Anwar Ali, Lahore was still 178 in 18.4 overs. He played the innings with 8 fours and 2 sixes.

Shaheen and David Visse scored 22 runs off the last 8 balls of Lahore’s innings. Shaheen scored 20 runs in 6 balls alone. The Lahore captain scored 44 runs off 15 balls with 2 fours and 5 sixes. Chasing a big target, the pair of Usman Khan-Mohammed Rizwan gave Multan a good start by scoring 41 runs in just 3.3 overs. Usman departed after scoring 18 runs off 12 balls. After Usman’s departure, Multan was chasing Lahore with the bat of Rizwan-Russo. When Russo departed in 10.3 overs, the team’s scorecard had accumulated 105 runs. Russo became a victim of Rashid Khan by scoring 52 runs in 32 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes. After one over, Rashid returned the ball to Rizwan as well. He scored 34 runs off 23 balls.

Shaheen Shah, who was initially beaten with the ball, took 4 wickets in two consecutive overs after taking the ball again. Shaheen, beaten in the previous spell, dismissed Tim David, Anwar Ali, and Usama Mir for 6 runs in his last over. He also dismissed Kieran Pollard in the previous over. Shaheen knocked Multan out of the match in this spell. In the last 2 overs, the target for Multan’s victory was 35 runs. However, Khushdil Shah and Abbas Afridi sealed the match with 22 runs in the 19th over by Haris Rauf. Multan’s target for victory was 13 runs in the last over. However, Multan’s batsmen could not get more than 11 runs from Zaman Khan’s over. Khushdil Shah scored 25 runs off 12 balls before being run out in the last over. Abbas remains unbeaten with 17 runs off 6 balls. Shaheen Afridi took 4 wickets with 51 runs in 4 overs. Rashid Khan took 2 wickets with only 26 runs in equal overs. David Visse took 1 wicket for 31 runs.