ABU DHABI: The competition-leading Lahore Qalandars had a 10-run win over Peshawar Zalmi as the second game in the first double-header since the resumption of the Pakistan Super League finished in the early hours of Friday morning.
The Qalandars slipped to 25-4 after 7 1/2 overs before Ben Dunk (48) and Tim David combined in an 81-run partnership to re-set the innings. David, who finished unbeaten on 64 from 36 balls, then shared a late 47-run stand with James Faulkner (22) to lift the Qalandars to 170-8.
Faulkner took two wickets in his first over, the second of the innings, to have Peshawar in early trouble before Rashid Khan took a pair in the 10th to keep the Qalandars in control.
Rashid returned 5-20 to restrict Peshawar to 160-8, despite Shoaib Malik’s 48-ball 73.
In the earlier game, Babar Azam’s unbeaten half century went in vain as Multan Sultans defeated defending champion Karachi Kings by 12 runs.
Azam hit 85 off 63 balls, but Multan held Karachi to 164-7 through some disciplined seam and spin bowling.
After being put into bat, Multan did well in the end to push its total to 176-5 with left-handed Khushdil Shah remaining unbeaten on 44 off 32 balls.
Fast bowler Imran Khan claimed 3-28 and leg-spinner Imran Tahir picked up the key wickets of Martin Guptill and Afghanistan’s Najibullah Zadran, who both scored 11 runs each as Azam was kept in check by the Multan bowlers.
Azam took his time to settle down and got little support from the other end to challenge the target. Azam raised his 18th half century in the PSL off 45 balls but his five fours and four sixes in the end were not enough to carry his team home.
Khan claimed all his three wickets in the last over and was on a hat trick when he dismissed Thisara Perera and captain Imad Wasim off successive deliveries.
Qasim Akram denied Khan the hat trick before offering a tame catch off the last ball at extra cover.
South African Rilee Rossouw smashed seven fours in his quickfire 44 off 24 balls and it looked like Multan could cross the 200-run mark.
Rossouw and captain Mohammad Rizwan (29) shared a 68-run third wicket stand off 39 balls as Multan reached 107-2 by the halfway stage.
But Karachi hit back through Thisara Perera, who bagged 2-12 off his three overs as Rossouw sliced a catch to long on and Rizwan was run-out in the same over while attempting a needless second run.
The left-handed Shah propelled Multan’s total with an unbeaten 44 off 32 balls when he hammered Mohammad Amir for three fours and a six in the last over as the left-arm fast bowler, now retired from international cricket, finished with expensive figures of 0-42 off his four overs.
Pakistan’s premier Twenty20 league was moved to Abu Dhabi for the remaining 20 games after it was suspended in March when several players and support staff tested positive for COVID-19 in a bio-secure bubble at Karachi.
PSL: Lahore Qalandars bag late victory over Peshawar Zalmi in Abu Dhabi
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PSL: Lahore Qalandars bag late victory over Peshawar Zalmi in Abu Dhabi
- Starring performances from batsman Tim David and leg-spinner Rashid Khan powered Lahore Qalandars to a 10-run victory
- After setting daunting target of 171 runs, Lahore Qalandars were off to flying start with the ball, removing two openers in second over
Pakistani man convicted in US in political assassination plot tied to Iranian paramilitary
- Asif Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses
- He testified he met a Revolutionary Guard operative who gave him countersurveillance training, assignments
NEW YORK: A Pakistani business owner who tried to hire hit men to kill a US politician was convicted Friday in a trial that showcased allegations of Iran-backed plotting on American soil.
As the Iran war unfolded in the Mideast, Asif Merchant acknowledged in a US court that he sought to put an assassination in motion during the 2024 presidential campaign — a plot that was quickly disrupted by American investigators before it had a chance to proceed.
A jury in Brooklyn convicted Merchant on terrorism and murder for hire charges.
The verdict after only a couple hours of deliberations followed a weeklong trial that included remarkable testimony from Merchant himself.
Merchant told the jury he was carrying out instructions from a contact in the Islamic Republic’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. According to Merchant, the handler never specified a target but broached names including then-candidate Donald Trump, then-President Joe Biden and Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador who was also in the race for a time.
The Iranian government has denied trying to kill US officials.
The nascent plot fell apart after Merchant showed an acquaintance what he had in mind by using objects on a napkin to depict a shooting at a rally. He asked the man to help him hire assassins. Instead, he was introduced to undercover FBI agents who were secretly recording him, as had the acquaintance.
Merchant told the supposed hit men he needed services that could include killing “some political person” and paid them $5,000 in cash in a parked car in Manhattan.
“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement released after the conviction.
Merchant’s attorney, Avraham Moskowitz, didn’t immediately reply to a message seeking comment.
Merchant, 47, worked for Pakistani banks for decades before going into clothing and other businesses. He has two families, in Pakistan and Iran, and he sometimes visited the US for his garment business.
Merchant testified that he met a Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative about three years ago. The contact gave him countersurveillance training and assignments including the assassination scheme, Merchant said.
He maintained that he had to do his handler’s bidding to protect loved ones in Iran. The defendant said he reluctantly went through the motions but thought he’d be arrested and explain his situation to authorities before anyone was killed.
“I was going along with it,” he said, speaking in Urdu through a court interpreter.
Prosecutors emphasized that Merchant admitted taking steps to enact the plan on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard, which the US considers a foreign terrorist organization, and he didn’t proactively go to authorities.
Instead, he was packing for a flight to Pakistan when he was arrested on July 12, 2024, a day before an unrelated attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. Officials said it appeared the Butler gunman acted alone but that they had been tracking a threat on Trump’s life from Iran, a claim that the Islamic Republic called “unsubstantiated and malicious.”
When Merchant subsequently spoke to FBI agents to explore the possibility of a cooperation agreement, he didn’t say he had acted out of fear for his family.
Prosecutors argued that he didn’t back up a defense of acting under duress. Merchant sought to persuade jurors he simply didn’t think the agents would believe him because they seemed to “think that I am some type of super-spy,” which he said he was “absolutely not.”
