Unburdened by captaincy, Shoaib Malik powers Karachi with bat to close win over Shahid Afridi’s Peshawar

Kings beat Zalmi by nine runs in Sharjah thriller, writes Paul Radley.

Shoaib Malik has become a key contributor with the bat for Karachi Kings. Pawan Singh / The National

Karachi Kings 174-4

Peshawar Zalmi 165

Karachi win by 9 runs

SHARJAH // Having been shunted ever further away from leading a franchise he helped construct, Shoaib Malik might have wondered where he stood when Karachi Kings began the second season of the HBL Pakistan Super League.

After five matches and a week-and-a-half of action, though, it seems the mercurial former Pakistan captain now revels in being one of the foot-soldiers.

In scoring a sparkling 51 not out from 27 balls at Sharjah Cricket Stadium, he laid the platform for a thrilling nine-run win over Peshawar Zalmi, Kings’ second victory in the space of three days.

Even a Shahid Afridi cameo for the ages could not deny him his moment, as Peshawar, playing their third match in three days, succumbed to a last-ball loss for the second time in 24 hours.

It was the third time Malik has played such a fine hand for Kings in this event so far. Maybe he has finally found his niche.

Last year, when a team was being set up to represent Pakistan’s biggest city, Malik was one of the central figures of it. He was immediately installed as captain, and was leaned on heavily for recruitment advice by the owner, Salman Iqbal.

Then, once the new Twenty20 competition had started, his side plumbed the depths, and he quickly decided captaincy was not really for him.

He fell on his sword before the end of the 2016 competition, and had slid even further down the pecking order by the time the second season started.

With Kumar Sangakkara specifically recruited to captain, Mahela Jayawardene newly arrived, too, and with Bopara still around, the Kings leadership group is now sizeable. Malik need not even attend planning meetings.

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Being permitted to focus merely on his own game is helping him flourish at present, though. Which is just what he asked for when he handed in his captaincy papers last year.

His form of late has been blistering. If the casual supporter was asked to name the biggest hitter in the PSL, Malik would barely register.

Yet some of the seven sixes he has hit in this competition rank among the longest. The fact that, by the end of the Kings innings, he was farming the strike away from Kieron Pollard, who is regarded as one of the most destructive death-over hitters in the game, showed his confidence was up.

After carrying his side to 174 for four from their 20 overs, his fortune was in with the ball, too. He reprised the old double act from last season when he had Eoin Morgan, Peshawar’s batting danger-man, caught at long on by Bopara.

Peshawar still threatened. In particular, when the darling of the UAE’s oldest cricket venue, Afridi, was in concert with Darren Sammy, the man who took over the Peshawar captaincy from him this season.

They shared 70 in just 39 balls, to take their side close. Despite being in his cricket dotage now, Afridi again thrilled the Sharjah masses like no one else can, as he made 54, before finally falling in attempting to take down the 10 required off the final two balls to win it.

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