..beat Peshawar Zalmi by 47 runs in the final

MULTAN Sultans won the Pakistan Super League (PSL) for the first time with a 47-run victory over Peshawar Zalmi.
Multan racked up a commanding 206-4 in the final in Abu Dhabi thanks to Rilee Rossouw’s 20-ball 50 and Sohaib Maqsood’s 65 not out off 35 balls.

Peshawar rarely threatened to pull off the highest chase in PSL history despite Shoaib Malik’s 28-ball 48.
They were without Haider Ali and Umaid Asif after they were suspended for breaching their bio-secure bubble.
The PSL was postponed in March because of rising Covid cases in Pakistan, but resumed on 9 June in Abu Dhabi, where players are still under restrictions.

Haider has also been dropped from Pakistan’s limited-overs squad to tour England in July and been replaced by Maqsood.
Multan openers Shan Masood and Mohammad Rizwan, who made 37 and 30 respectively, put on 68 after Peshawar won the toss.

But it was the third-wicket partnership of 98 from Rossouw and Maqsood that effectively settled the game, with South Africa batsman Rossouw hitting three sixes in his brutal half-century.
Kamran Akmal dominated the early stages of Peshawar’s reply – he scored the first 36 runs – but was among three wickets to fall for 16 runs as they slipped to 58-3.

Shoaib led a counter-attack before he fell to a brilliant diving catch from 42-year-old former South Africa leg-spinner Imran Tahir, who claimed two wickets in his final over to finish with 3-33.
There was no English involvement in the final after Multan’s Adam Lyth and James Vince and Peshawar’s Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Ravi Bopara and Saqib Mahmood did not return following the postponement.(BBC sPORT.