DUBAI: Spinners Samit Patel and Zafar Gohar ran through Peshawar Zalmi’s batting line-up and JP Duminy played a brilliant knock as Islamabad United scored a 26-run victory in the 21st fixture of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) at Dubai International Stadium here on Friday night. The duo shared seven wickets between themselves to power their side to a brilliant victory over the defending champions. With that victory and two more points in the bag, Islamabad, the league’s inaugural champions, have soared to the top of the PSL 2018 points table, supplanting Multan Sultans. Chasing a formidable target of 183, Peshawar kept losing wickets at regular intervals, and managed to score 156 for the loss of nine wickets. No Peshawar batsman was able to spearhead the innings. Kamran Akmal looked in good touch early on in Peshawar innings, hitting three 4s and a solitary 6 on his way to a 17-ball 22 before he missed a fuller Patel ball and was out leg before wicket. By the end of 5 overs, the defending champions were 41-1 and there was everything to play for. The run chase seemed on until Patel struck twice more, removing Andre Fletcher and Dwayne Smith on the first two ball of the 8th over to put Islamabad in the driving seat and then some. With half their overs gone, Peshawar were 69-3 and in need of a further 114 runs. Eleventh and 12th overs saw the triple dismissals of Khushdil Shah, Liam Dawson, Darren Sammy as Islamabad tightened their grip on the game. The last two were both bowled out, both bamboozled by away-spinning deliveries by the 23-year-old Zafar. Patel made Hasan Ali his fourth victim of the night as Peshawar lost their seventh wicket. In the 14th over, Gohar proved that anything Patel could do, he could as well, removing Mohammad Hafeez. Remarkably, all eight wickets until that point were taken by spin bowlers. The tail showed some resistance but in the end Peshawar fell 26 runs short of their target. Wahab Riaz finished the innings with the top score of 33 not out off 25 balls. Along with Umaid Asif, Wahab strung together a 55-run ninth-wicket stand to reduce the margin of defeat. Earlier, after being put into bat first, Islamabad posted a mammoth total of 182 for the loss five wickets in their allotted 20 overs. The star of the show was veteran all-rounder Duminy, who scored an unbeaten 73 off 54 balls with the help of six fours and four sixes. With Asif Ali’s blazing 45 at the end steered Islamabad to within one-run of the tournament’s highest score. Peshawar had, in truth, bowled poorly; no one except Wahab was able to hit either the yorker or bouncer lengths accurately enough, and the 81 runs Misbah-ul-Haq’s men pillaged off the last 37 balls reflected that. Pacer Wahab was the pick of the bowlers as he claimed figures of three for 30. Brief scores: Islamabad United 182 for 5 (JP Duminy 73 not out, Asif Ali 45, Wahab Riaz 3-30) beat Peshawar Zalmi 156 for 9 (Wahab Riaz 33 not out, Umaid Asif 25, Samit Patel 4-34, Gohar Zafar 3-25) by 26 runs. Published in Daily Times, March 11th 2018.