Dubai: Cricket could be crazy, funny and fantastic — that’s the way both teams described the thrilling super over finish which handed Lahore Qalanadars a nail-biting win over Karachi Kings in the third Pakistan Super League match at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday.
“It was a crazy game of cricket,” remarked Brendon McCullum, the skipper of the Lahore team. McCullum who was upset with his team’s six successive defeats, is happy that his team is finally winning though the victories came too late as they have already crashed out of the tournament.
The former New Zealand captain made sure to laud his players that played very well against Karachi. “I am really proud that the guys managed to chase it down against a side like Karachi. Both teams deserved to win tonight, but pretty pleased to be on the winning side. We can’t help the fact that we are out of the tournament. But we know what it means for the fans. It was really important for us today and proud of the boys. We saw some youngsters stand up today and deliver under pressure,” he said.
McCullum picked Sunil Narine for special praise and said: “Sunil (Narine) is such a quality player, such a class act.”
Karachi Kings’ all-rounder Ravi Bopara, who thought his team won the match when he took a well judged catch on the boundary line, which was then declared a no ball, later said: “Super over is always a funny one. It was a tough game to be honest. I thought Lahore played well, all credit to them. Never mind, we need to move on and think about the next game.”
Karachi coach Mickey Arthur hailed the match as a “fantastic game of cricket.”
When Gulf News asked Arthur on how he plans to recover from the defeat and move ahead, he said: “We committed lot of errors tonight. In fact, we committed a lot of schoolboy errors. Our team will sit down and assess our performance.”
Arthur then talked about his pacer Usman Khan Shinwari whose no-ball at the crucial stage of the game resulted in the match ending in a tie. “The poor guy is devastated in the changing room but he will learn from that experience. And ultimately that’s what this competition is for, it is for the emergence of young Pakistan talent. As long as young Pakistani players are developing, I am really happy.”
Lahore’s Agha Salman, named Man of the Match for his half-century, had spearheaded his team’s run chase. Speaking about his performance, Salman said: “I try to play all the 20 overs and I am happy that I managed to almost to do it. I try to work on my weakness and try to get better with every game.”
