Watch: Abbas Afridi took a hat-trick against Quetta Gladiators to help Multan Sultans win a high-scoring thriller in Rawalpindi yesterday (March 11).

The game was a record-breaking one, with 515 runs scored across both innings, the most ever in a T20 fixture. However, just because the run rates are high doesn’t mean bowlers have no say, as Afridi showed with his game-changing burst.

Afridi struck once in the powerplay, dismissing Mohammad Hafeez in the sixth over, before returning at the death. While the required run rate was high, given the number of runs that had been plundered in Rawalpindi, a comeback wasn’t out of the question.

Afridi claimed the wicket of Iftikhar Ahmed in his second over – thought it still went for 13 – and when Umar Akmal struck the first two balls of his next over for six, a twist wasn’t out of the question. But Afridi got Mohammed Nawaz and Umaid Asif both caught by Kieron Pollard to end his third over before removing Umar Akmal to start his last, completing a hat-trick and a five-wicket haul in the same blow.

This was the fifth hat-trick is PSL history and ended up being vital as the Sultans beat the Quetta Gladiators by just nine runs.

Watch the Abbas Afridi hat-trick below:

🚨 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐈 🚨

FIRST hattrick of the #HBLPSL8
Abbas Afridi on a ROLL 🕺🏻

#SabSitarayHumaray | #QGvMS pic.twitter.com/sM3KCdQUMG

— PakistanSuperLeague (@thePSLt20) March 11, 2023