Discarded Pakistan batter Sahibzada Farhan’s record-breaking campaign in the National T20 Cup went in vain as Peshawar lost the final by nine wickets against Lahore Blues on Thursday (March 27).
Just five days after smashing an unbeaten 72-ball 162 – the joint third-highest individual score in T20s – Farhan followed it up with a blistering 148 in the semi-final. In doing so, he became the first cricketer to record two 130-plus scores in a single T20 tournament, as well as the fifth player ever to hit three or more centuries in a T20 competition. Remarkably, all three of his hundreds came in his last six innings.
Unfortunately for Farhan, the sensational form didn’t translate into a title, following Peshawar v Lahore Blues in Faisalabad on Thursday. Batting first, the opener started showing glimpses of his brilliance with a four and a six, but could only manage 17 runs off his 16 deliveries. After an underwhelming powerplay, Peshawar slipped to 38-4. They couldn’t recover from the early collapse as Salman Mirza’s 4-21 restricted them to 110-9.
Pakistan have now lost three consecutive T20I series in New Zealand, with the last two by the same margin.#NZvsPAK #Cricket pic.twitter.com/i1hHB9P3ZR
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) March 27, 2025
In response, Lahore Blues made light work of the target, riding on opener Umar Siddiq’s 64 off 46, studded with six fours and two sixes. They gunned down the paltry total in 16 overs with nine wickets remaining to claim their fifth title.
Farhan’s last seven innings read: 62, 76, 162, 26, 148, and 17. With 605 runs at a strike rate of 189, he finished as the tournament’s highest-ever run-scorer in a single edition, surpassing his record of 492 runs in the previous season.
In the process, he also overtook Fakhar Zaman’s 588 runs in PSL 2022 – previously the highest run tally by a Pakistani batter in a T20 competition – achieving the feat in just seven innings compared to Fakhar’s 13.
Though Farhan would be disappointed that the high-scoring season didn’t culminate in a trophy, his performances have surely placed him in the reckoning for an international call-up, having last donned the national jersey in December last year.
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