Jason Gillespie walked into the media room looking equal parts satisfied and flat. He knew his Hyderabad Kingsmen had been miles better this season than many expected, yet on Sunday night they finished a long way behind Peshawar Zalmi – 29 deliveries, to be precise, the biggest cushion ever recorded in a PSL final.
“We just didn’t give our bowlers enough runs to defend and full credit to Peshawar,” he said. “We threw everything at them, they stood up and got their team home, full credit to them. They were too good for us tonight.”
Those words could have been prepared in advance; the numbers on the board left him little wiggle room. Kingsmen’s 129 all out was not only the lowest first-innings score in a PSL decider, it was a fair distance below what they themselves have churned out in the season’s middle overs. Since their first win they had plundered 502 runs between the seventh and 14th, more than anyone else. On the biggest night, though, their engine mis-fired.
“We had a decent Powerplay,” Gillespie reflected. “We started pretty well, and then just lost that little period where in a couple of overs, we lost four for two. That just took the wind out of our sails.”
Those two extraordinary overs were carnage: Irfan Khan and Azam Khan run-out within three balls, Glenn Maxwell slicing his first delivery tamely to mid-on, and youngster Saad Baig late on a pull that ballooned to fine leg. From 58 for 1 they crashed to 60 for 5, leaving Hardie, Naveen-ul-Haq and company free to bowl dots without gambling at the death.
Desperate for a miracle, Kingsmen charged in with the new ball. When Mohammad Haris hoicked Hunain Shah to mid-off and, two balls later, Babar Azam nicked one pushing well away from his body, the contest flickered back to life. Hunain then had Kusal Mendis flashing to the cordon and Akif Javed yorked Michael Bracewell. At 40 for 4 the Kingsmen huddle brimmed with energy again.
“The conversations we had were pretty simple,” Gillespie said. “We knew we underachieved with the bat, but the big word we kept using was that we’ve got to believe. In this tournament, we’ve found ourselves in tricky situations and found ways out of it. We needed just one little twist and unfortunately that didn’t happen tonight.”
Aaron Hardie made sure of that. The Western Australian all-rounder had already returned career-best T20 figures of 4 for 27; now he compiled a measured, unbeaten 56 from 39 balls, his first half-century away from home. Abdul Samad joined in with 48 off 34, the pair adding 85 and draining what belief remained in the fielding side.
Maxwell shuffled five bowlers in search of another opening, even lobbing himself a speculative over of off-spin, but the surface had lost its early nip. When Hardie flat-batted Akif over long-off for six to finish it, Zalmi supporters behind the dug-out erupted and the yellow shirts flooded the outfield.
For Hyderabad the feeling is of a season that delivered plenty — an unlikely sprint from the foot of the ladder into the last match — yet still leaves a hollow spot. Maxwell’s quickfire 32 and Labuschagne’s late 18 were the only pockets of resistance with the bat, and both ended through rushed running rather than outright skill from the bowlers.
For Zalmi, meanwhile, there is deserved acclaim. Naveen’s cutters, Bashir’s clever drift and, above all, Hardie’s composure kept the trophy march on time. Babar lifted silverware while his own runs never materialised; leadership, not volume, was his contribution on the night.
Gillespie, ever the realist, could find a silver lining. The Kingsmen had unearthed Hunain Shah and Saad Baig, revived Akif Javed, and proved they could put a string of wins together when logic said they were done. “I’m immensely proud of how far we’ve come,” he concluded. “Tonight hurts, obviously, but it doesn’t wipe out the progress this group has made.”
That progress is what the squad will carry into the winter. Yet on this floodlit evening in Karachi, it was Zalmi’s night, sealed with 29 balls still tucked away in the bank.
