SHARJAH: The first HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) hxture of the Sharjah leg provided a rousing encounter on Wednesday night in which holders Islamabad United rode on a brilliant innings of 78 by Sam Billings to beat Quetta Gladiators by five wickets.

A sizable crowd at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium cheered both sides in a major departure from five of the six opening games in Dubai. In the end, Islamabad had the men to make light work of the 149-run chase while ending Quetta`s winning run in the competition.

It was the England-Australia duo of Billings and Shane Watson which pressed the accelerator after Quetta had pulled back with three wickets.

Billings, voted man of the match, provided first glimpses of his talent as he toyed with the bowling to strike eight boundaries and three sixes in a career-best 50-ball effort.

Watson was the game-changer as the retired Australian all-rounder hit a quick fire 36 from 27 balls while adding 63 off 43 balls with Billings.

But Quetta, who lost their first game of the tournament, were very much in the game until the captain, Sarfraz Ahmed, dropped a sitter off Mohammad Nawaz from Watson, who was yet to open his account. At that point, the champions would have beenfourdownfor73.

Earlier, Quetta got off to a bright start on the shiny-looking track after Misbah-ul-Haq followed the trend of all previous games by opting to bowl upon winning the toss.Asad Shafiq and Ahmed Shehzad added 35 in the opening four overs, but the start of the next over saw Islamabad seize control through Mohammad Sami, who took two wickets in two balls. The ex-Pakistanspeedster extracted sweet revenge by removing Shehzad who had greeted him by pulling the first delivery of his opening over for six for 26.

Sami then delivered the coup de grace to Kevin Pietersen`s wretched start to the league. The former England star was trapped in front for a second successive duck.

Rilee Rossouw, coming into this fixture with bacleto-bacl( half centu-ries and consecutive man of the match awards, departed for just seven and Sarfraz Ahmed scored only 12.

Asad, who never looked lil(e clearing the field, then fell first ball after the strategic time-out for a rather pedestrian 42-ball contribution of 45.

It was then left to Mahmudullah, who flew to the Emirates from India after Test duty for Bangladesh to make his PSL debut, and Thisara Perera to give Quetta much-need impetus with a partnership of 46 in 4.5 overs.

Another highlight of this game was the performance of emerging players, Shadab Khan and Hassaan Khan.

Team-mates at last year`s ICC Under19 World Cup but playing against each other now, their combined eight overs yielded only 45 runs.

-Agencies