Sharjah: Karachi Kings skipper Kumar Sangakkara did everything possible to help his team record their first victory in the tournament. He cracked a brilliant 65 and put on a 101-run partnership in 10.4 overs with Shoaib Malek (39) but all his efforts went in vain as Lahore Qalandars won by seven runs on Thursday night on the second day of Pakistan Super League action at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Sangakkara, a veteran of many battles and a batting legend in his own right, knows how to keep his cool even under such pressure. “Three losses in three games, we haven’t really played well. Today was probably the best game we played but unfortunately our fielding was not really up to the mark. We dropped catches and, if we did not, we could have limited them to 20 runs less. At the same time we had the run chase covered by the 15th over. We had wickets in hand. We had the ideal batsmen in there. I thought Lahore fielded really well and probably that made a huge difference. They stopped about 10 to 15 runs in the outfield.”

Sangakkara is a shrewd observer of the game who has sparkled in all formats and hence was not perturbed when asked how — when his team have such top players — they have been unable to win. “Well it is T20 cricket and it is always a tough competition. It doesn’t matter what side you have but you need to really execute yours skills really well. Today was not to be. Pressure is always there and now it is a bit more and it is now time for everyone to deliver. For us as a team, everyone has put in hard effort today but unfortunately we ended up on the losing side. I thought we limited them from 200 runs to 180 runs, probably 15 runs too many in the field but having said that we still should have chased it down.”

The former Sri Lankan captain said that his team should now play freely. “It is really now a nothing-to-lose situation. We have lost three and we need to keep going and try and win. That is the way cricket goes, one has to keep playing, keep winning and keep doing things really well. We have got an opportunity again in the next match.”

When asked whether Malek should have stayed on after the fall of his wicket, Sangakkara said: “Every batsman staying on helps, that is the way T20 goes, you have got to take risk. I thought Shoaib batted brilliantly. We just needed to put the finishing touches. Eleven runs an over with a small boundary and with the batsmen we had probably, we should have got it.”

When asked about Gayle and a few others not firing for the team, Sangakkara said: “We just need them to come off in the next few games. I think they are batting well, we just need to back them and support them for as long as possible as the tournament progresses.”

Brief scores:

Lahore Qalandars bt Karachi Kings by seven runs. Lahore Qalandars 179 for 8 in 20 overs (Jason Roy 26, Fakhar Zaman 56, Umar Akmal 25, Mohammad Rizwan 29, Mohammad Amir 2 for 30, Sohail Khan 2 for 37, Usama Mir 2 for 35) Karachi Kings 172 for 8 in 20 overs (Kumar Sangakkara 65, Shoaib Malek 39,

Sohail Tanvir 2 for 30, Sunil Narine 2 for 31, Mohammad Irfan 2 for 35) Man of the match: Fakhar Zaman