Dawid Malan, the Qalandars captain, praised his makeshift side for finishing fourth in the Abu Dhabi T10, and said the Lahore-based franchise can thrive if their Pakistani players are allowed to feature in future.
The England batsman was one of a raft of recruits made in the days leading up to the tournament after their entire contingent of Pakistan players were refused permission to play.
The new team came together admirably as they earned a play-off place, but their chances of success diminished as almost all of their leading players fell foul of injury.
Bangla Tigers beat them to third place when captain Thisara Perera hit the fourth ball of the last over for six to seal a six-wicket win.
“It is good signs for this franchise that they could put a team together this quickly, a young team with limited international experience, and still compete so well,” Malan said.
“It shows that if they do manage to get their young Qalandars players through, there is every chance they will learn quickly as well.
“We had a fantastic campaign, especially when you consider the injuries we had.
“If we had Mujeeb [Ur Rahman], Chris Jordan, Tom Banton, and [Seekkuge Prasanna] for the whole tournament, we would have been disappointed to finish fourth.
“You have to perform with what you’ve got. Other teams have injuries as well, but I am extremely proud of the way the boys played.”
Colin Ingram, vice-captain of the Tigers, had mixed emotions over finishing third.
“It is a bittersweet feeling, but we are obviously really happy we won today,” Ingram said.
“We had good momentum coming into the last two days, but lost two vital games which put us out of contesting for the trophy.
“We operated really well through the whole tournament. We had the third highest run-rate in the tournament, didn’t score under 100 once, and played really consistent cricket.
“We were happy with our performance, but we would obviously have liked to have been competing in the final.”
