Peshawar Zalmi defeated Multan Sultans by five runs in a thriller on Friday night.

Needing 22 runs of the last over, the Sultans could only manage 16 runs. Pacer Naveen ul Haq grabbed two wickets of the last two deliveries to end the game.

Peshawar Zalmi won the toss and elected to bat first. Although the innings got off to a slow start, Zalmi slowly gathered pace with a 46-run partnership between Babar Azam (31) and Haseebullah Khan (37) for the second wicket.

Rovmen Powell hit 23 runs off 11 deliveries and wickets continued to tumble at regular intervals. Zalmi finished with 179/8 in their 20 overs.

For Multan, David Willey, Mohammad Ali and Usama Ali grabbed two wickets apiece.

In response, Sultans managed only 7 runs in the first 2.3 overs. However, Yasir Khan’s 43 runs and Dawid Malan’s 52 runs put the inning back on track.

Usama Mir (13) and Abbas Afridi (11) flared briefly. Iftikhar Ahmed stood his ground, scoring 14 runs in the last over, but in vain.

Arif Yaqoob starred with the ball for Zalmi, grabbing 3 wickets for 43 runs.