Abrar Ahmed‘s late cameo of 24 off 14 threatened a heist but in the end it was Fakhar Zaman‘s searing 103 off 51 that blazed a path for Lahore Qalandars, as they registered back-to-back wins for the first time this season, overcoming Quetta Gladiators by nine runs at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.

The result pushes Qalandars up into fourth place, and with two games still left to play, they will now fancy themselves a playoff berth.

For Gladiators, it was a second straight defeat, which leaves them precariously poised on six points with just one game left to play. With the sides below them all having at least three games in hand, Gladiators will now need other results to go their way in order to qualify.

And in that context, they will rue a genuine missed opportunity on Tuesday, where for much of the chase, they were very much in the game. Set a target of 198 courtesy of Fakhar’s belligerence, there was a 49-run opening stand, and innings of substance from Shamyl Hussain (53 off 31) and Rilee Rossouw (62 off 29), but unfortunately for the Gladiators that was the extent of it.

In hindsight, Rossouw’s departure at the end of the 15th over signalled the shift in the game’s trajectory. With the South African at the crease, the target seemed short, but once he fell, the innings too followed. Gladiators managed just 31 runs in the final four overs, with Haris Rauf (2 for 28) and Shaheen Shah Afridi (1 for 35) showing off their death bowling chops.

The game, however, was largely about one man: Fakhar. This, for the most part, was a strange game, in which several batters struggled to find their range but those that did flourished. It meant that in a game where there was a century and two fifties scored, only two other batters scored more than 20 runs – and one of those was no.9, Abrar.

This also meant it was a fairly unpredictable game as a whole, with a solitary wicket capable of dramatic shifts in momentum. This was evident in the chase, where first Shamyl and then Rossouw played aggressor but batters at the other end were relegated to observers; even Saud Shakeel was content to knock about a run-a-ball 17 as Shamyl rampaged at nearly a 200 strike rate.

But once those aggressors fell, the complexion of the innings changed. So in the end it was simply a matter of Fakhar doing more with his time in the middle. Nothing highlighted this more than his strike rate of 201.96, positively eclipsing that of his team-mates – Daniel Sams‘ striking at 150 during his 18 off 12 was the next best.

Closely behind Sams was Charith Asalanka, whose 31 off 24 was the stabilising foil to the feast Fakhar was cooking. He brought up his hundred in 50 deliveries, smashing 11 fours and six sixes across his innings. Earlier, he had set the tone in the powerplay, driving Lahore to 58 for 1 and ensuring the 100-run team mark was crossed by the 10th over.

But his team-mates, either by design or ineptitude, were simply unable to keep up. Asalanka’s contributions were largely passive, while Abdullah Shafique struggled to rotate strike efficiently. Only Sams was able to provide a late flourish – after Fakhar had fallen at the start of the death overs – without which even the 33 runs they fetched in the death overs would not have been possible. Fortunately for Qalandars though, their pace battery came to the fore when it counted.