Peshawar Zalmi kept rolling on Wednesday, chasing down 183 with room to spare against Karachi Kings and stretching their winning streak to seven matches in PSL 2026. Kusal Mendis made an unbeaten 80 off 43 balls, Farhan Yousaf added a calm but punchy 58 not out from 36, and Zalmi got home in 18.5 overs for a seven-wicket win at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
For a while, Karachi looked as if they had put up something serious. Jason Roy led the charge with 85 from 51 balls, hitting 11 fours and two sixes, while Azam Khan’s 35 off 19 gave the innings a late shove. Karachi reached 182 for 9, which felt competitive enough on a decent surface, but the finish was messy. Zalmi’s 17-year-old quick Ali Raza ripped through the back end with 4 for 41 and, in the process, became the youngest Pakistani bowler to claim a T20 hat-trick.
Zalmi’s chase had a couple of bumps early. James Vince fell for 16, Babar Azam made 25, and Aaron Hardie’s dismissal at 67 for 3 briefly opened the door for Karachi. That was pretty much Karachi’s last real opening. Mendis and Farhan shut the game down with a 119-run unbroken stand for the fourth wicket, mixing clean hitting with very little panic. Mendis reached his fifty in 28 balls and finished with five fours and four sixes; Farhan brought up his half-century in 35 deliveries for what was his maiden PSL fifty in his debut season.
There is a bigger pattern here now, and it is hard to ignore. Mendis has been one of the form batters of the tournament, with ESPNcricinfo noting that this was his fifth 50-plus score in his last six innings. Zalmi, meanwhile, have turned a hot streak into something more substantial: they remain on top of the table and are looking less like a team in good form and more like the side everyone else is trying to catch.
The result also deepened Karachi’s problems against Zalmi this season. Earlier in the tournament, Peshawar had crushed the Kings by 159 runs in Karachi, a match in which Mendis blasted 109 off 52 and Babar stayed unbeaten on 87. Wednesday’s win was nowhere near as lopsided, but it carried the same message: right now, Zalmi seem to have Karachi’s number.
For Karachi, Roy’s innings deserved a better outcome. He held their batting together through the middle overs and gave them a platform, but the collapse at the death cost them. For Zalmi, it was another night where different names stepped up — Roy was contained late, Ali Raza changed the tone of the innings, and then Mendis and Farhan finished the job without letting the chase drift. That’s usually how title contenders play
