Rauf, Raza break United's winning streak to seal big win for Qalandars

Lahore Qalandars became the first team to beat Islamabad United in nearly 14 months, snapping a PSL record 10-match winning streak from United, dismantling them by 88 runs. Qalandars, who were also the last side to beat them before this streak, had the path paved for them by a near-perfect T20 batting performance. Each of the top six scored between 22 and 44, four boasting strike rates in excess of 145 as they posted 209. It was followed up by a professional bowling performance that picked up enough wickets at regular intervals to ensure - one partnership aside - that United's response would not be a serious attempt at a chase.

Islamabad United made five changes to a side that has won each of their first five matches, but Qalandars came out hungrier. Mohammad Naeem has struggled for fluency all tournament, but signalled a shift with three boundaries on the trot against Ben Dwarshius in the fourth over, which Fakhar Zaman followed up by a pair of sixes against Naseem Shah. The team nature of the innings was epitomised by Fakhar launching Jason Holder for a six off the final ball of the powerplay, one ball after a superb bit of fielding saw Naeem run out.

Hunain Shah, one of the players brought into the side, couldn't stem the flow at the end of the powerplay as Abdullah Shafique helped himself to three boundaries in the over, but then again, no United bowler, barring perhaps Imad Wasim, could. Wasim deceived Fakhar in the flight to send him back for a brisk 44 off 30 before striking again in his following over to remove Shafique.

But Qalandars' middle and lower order is becoming one of their core strengths, and Daryl Mitchell, Sam Billings and Sikandar Raza took turns making United pay. Daryl Mitchell plundered 18 off the usually electric Holder while Billings helped himself to three sixes off five deliveries as United's fielding discipline fell apart. The irrepressible Raza topped it off by ransacking Dwarshius' 19th over for 21 and Holder's last for another 16 as 96 came off the final six.

United are the last side to give up in pursuit of a large total, but the partnerships they usually put together in such situations never looked like forming. A 69-run stand between Andries Gous and Salman Agha offered a glimpse of United's ability and mindset in games of this nature, keeping Qalandars honest as the asking rate was kept within the realms of possibility. But once Raza darted one through the defences of Agha in the 12th over, the mess it made of his stumps foretold United's impending fate. Four balls later, Haris Rauf struck to remove Azam Khan, the first of four wickets for the Qalandars' quickest bowler.

When he got Gous playing down the wrong line, he had sent United's most established threat packing after an entertaining 27-ball 41, and unlike the Qalandars, United couldn't get the rest of their batters chipping in to burrow their way through to the total. Raza picked up another couple as the innings began to disintegrate, and when Haris coaxed Naseem into carving one straight down third man's throat to wrap the game up, Islamabad had lost their last nine for 41. The magnitude of the win takes the Qalandars up to second place, with the team they had so thoroughly vanquished still sitting comfortably up top.