Aaqib Javed, the Lahore Qalandars coach, has said that his side “misread the pitch” after they lost the final against rivals Karachi Kings on Tuesday. After Lahore opted to bat, Fakhar Zaman and Tamim Iqbal added a steady 68-run opening stand off 61 balls, but the middle-order batsmen struggled to get going on a slow track, as they managed only 134 for 7.
“We misread the pitch,” Javed told ESPNcricinfo. “The idea was to bat first in a high-pressure game and set a big total to take an early advantage. But the standard of the pitch wasn’t great .. it was sticky, maybe it was the lack of heat in November or whatever but it didn’t go well. We realised the slowness of the pitch and that is why we sent [Mohammad] Hafeez ahead of Sohail Akhtar to keep the scoreboard rolling. But it just didn’t work either…everyone went for big shots.”
Javed also pointed out that Babar Azam was the difference between the two teams. Azam made an unbeaten 63 – his sixth successive fifty-plus score – to…