Man of the Series PSL 2022: The captain of the runners-up team has been awarded with the Man of the Series award tonight.
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During the final match of the seventh season of the Pakistan Super League between Multan Sultans and Lahore Qalandars in Lahore, Lahore Qalandars beat Multan Sultans by 42 runs to win their maiden PSL season.
Chasing a 181-run target, Sultans were nowhere near their best in the night of the final at the Gaddafi Stadium. A lacklustre batting effort saw them getting bundled out for 138 in 19.3 overs to register a one-sided contest.
Qalandars, who were the only team to have defeated Multan in the league stage, defeated them twice in PSL 7 to be the deserving champions. Surpassing Islamabad United captain Shadab Khan, Lahore captain Shaheen Shah Afridi became the highest wicket-taker in the tournament on the back of bowling figures of 4-0-30-3 in the final.
While veteran all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez (Afridi’s new-ball partner in the final) and fast bowler Zaman Khan also picked a couple of wickets each on Sunday, fast bowler Haris Rauf and all-rounder David Wiese picked a wicket apiece.
Afridi’s decision of batting first was followed by Lahore struggling for a large part of their innings. Having said that, Hafeez’s 43rd T20 half-century and a 16-ball 43-run game-changing partnership between Harry Brook and Wiese powered LQ to 180/5 in 20 overs. Brook and Wiese scoring a combined total of 69* (30) at respective strike rates of 186.36 and 350 were the difference between both the teams tonight.
Man of the Series PSL 2022
In addition to Afridi, top contenders for the Player of the Tournament award in PSL 2022 were Shadab, Lahore batter Fakhar Zaman and Multan captain Mohammad Rizwan.
While one expected either of the first three cricketers to take home the award, it was runners-up captain Rizwan who was declared the Man of the Series.
Having scored 546 runs in 12 innings at an average and strike rate of 68.25 and 126.68 with the help of seven half-centuries, Rizwan is the second highest run-scorer behind Zaman (588) in PSL 2022. Apart from his magnificent batting numbers, Rizwan’s captaincy (10 wins in 12 matches throughout the season) and wicket-keeping (seven catches and two stumping dismissals) also seem to have worked in his favour.
“The two teams in the finals are totally deserving of the title. There’s always pressure in the final and the team that handles the pressure well wins the game. The way [Mohammad] Hafeez handled the pressure was the turning point,” Rizwan told PTV Sports during the post-match presentation ceremony.
“They took the game deep and soaked up the pressure much better than us. It’s a great learning opportunity for a lot of them. We are humans and mistakes do happen, so it’s overall a learning curve for all of us as a team.”
