Iqbal picked up 3 for 16 before Clarke’s 23-ball 46 reduced the chase to a formality
Karachi Kings 126 for 3 (Clarke 46, Nabi 30*, Hasnain 2-18) beat Quetta Gladiators 121 (Gayle 39, Iqbal 3-16, Maqsood 2-21) by seven wickets
Last year’s win was no fluke, and this year’s title defence is no surrender. That was the emphatic message Karachi Kings sent out not just to the hapless Quetta Gladiators, whom they thrashed by seven wickets in the inaugural PSL match of this season, but also to the rest of the teams. The Kings might have copped criticism for letting go of Mohammad Rizwan in the off season, but it was the new wicketkeeping recruit Joe Clarke who was the star of the show for Imad Wasim’s side, taking four catches and blitzing 46 off 23 balls to tear the game away from the Gladiators.
The win was initially set up by the Kings bowlers – emerging player Arshad Iqbal chief among them – who punctured the Gladiators with regular wickets throughout the innings, and in the end,…