DUBAI: A skilful performance from the left-arm duo of Mohammad Asghar and Wahab Riaz sealed Peshawar Zalmi's 24-run win in their opening fixture against Islamad United.
Defending 145, Asghar's slow, loopy spinners derailed Islamabad's top order. He dismissed Babar Azam for a duck in his first over, Umar Amin for four in his second and then got the big wicket of Misbah-ul-Haq for 12 as Islamabad lost half their side for 66 runs. Shane Watson, who made 28, was their top-scorer, but he was dismissed by Wahab in the ninth over.
Sam Billings and Andre Russell resisted, but both of them fell off successive balls and Wahab finished with 3 for 32. Asghar had a hand in those wickets too - he clung on to two sharp chances on the cover boundary and later played them down by saying he had large hands like most Pathans and so it would be hard to drop catches. So United fell to 121 for 9 and their second defeat in as many matches.
In the first innings, Peshawar managed to reach 145 with Tamim Iqbal making a run-a-ball half-century. It ended up a crucial contribution considering Peshawar, having chosen to bat, had stumbled to 88 for 4 in the 15th over and needed a set batsman in the middle for Shahid Afridi and Darren Sammy to go hard at the other end. Their late hitting pushed the total past 140 in the death, though, none of Peshawar's batsmen, barring Tamim, managed a score more than 16. For Islamabad, Russell took 3 for 31.
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