KARACHI: The debut-making Pakistan Super League outfit, Multan Sultans, who got off to an exhilarating start in PSL III and were clearly seen as among favourites for the title, then crashed to successive defeats and lost all the momentum to end up as fifth on the points table at the end of round matches.

Why did that happen and what were the causes for this rapid decline in Multan Sultan’s performance?

When DawnNews approached team manager and former Test bowler Nadeem Khan for the answers, he said there were multiple reasons for the comedown.

Speaking upon his return to Karachi on Monday, Nadeem said: “Firstly, the average age of our players was high compared to other teams and, unfortunately, some of them got injured because of the hectic schedule.”

Elaborating further on the causes, Nadeem said: “Being the newest entrant in PSL, Multan had no other option but to pick the first ten players from the released ones, and then they also had the last pick in all categories during the players’ draft.

“That somewhat hampered us in picking the best squad. All teams kept their best ten players and we had to pick our first ten from the released ones, so we had fewer choices,” said Nadeem.

An intelligent and articulate person who understands the game well and is respected by one and all in the cricketing circles, Nadeem went on to add: “Then, in all categories, we had the last pick. We are not blaming anyone because we accepted things that way, but those were the reasons that we were not able to pick the ideal or the best squad.”

Another reason he cited for Multan’s slump in the last few games was that Sultans’ match schedule was the toughest among all teams. “We got a good start but because of the tough schedule which hardly provided any rest to our players, some of them became very tired and got injured as well and obviously we failed to keep the momentum after that,” he said.

When asked why young opener Shan Masood was not given a chance in PSL 3 despite his superb stint in the domestic season, Nadeem agreed he was a little unfortunate. “Ahmad Shahzad had a low strike rate but his opening partnership was going fine with Kumar Sangakara,” said Nadeem.

“We still have the record of the longest opening partnership in season III. So Shan had to sit out. But he is an amazing player and was a little unfortunate,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2018