After the brilliant performance by Shakib Al Hasan in the last match, Bangladesh’s marvelous opening batsman Tamim Iqbal has scored a brilliant fifty in his debut for Peshawar Zalmi in their first match of PSL against Islamabad United, as he played a steady fifty-plus knock to lift his team to a competitive 140+ total at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Friday in the day’s second match.
Though Tamim is mostly known all over the world for his hard hitting ability, the knock he played today wasn’t one of that kind His start was a bit scratchy, he edged a couple of times down the legside — fortunately not with the bat but with his feet. Overall he was struggling to match with the pace of the ball initially. He was trying hard to hit the ball hard but was failing again and again.
Despite having made a not-so-impressive start, Tamim, was at least, able to stick around, which most other Zalmi batsmen couldn’t do. And it was clear that he needed just one big shot to settle himself and get into the act. And from the moment he connected one, all of a sudden he was looking more confident than ever.
Tamim reached his fifty in the 18th over, facing 50 balls. With his team losing five wickets already, including that precious one of Shahid Afridi, more responsibility fell on the set batsman Tamim to power his team towards the end the innings. But the southpaw batsman couldn’t fulfil the spectator’s expectation. Still he was the top scorer of the innings, playing a run-a-ball 51 that included three fours and a sixer.