Watch the 2022 Pakistan Super League live and in full on Sky Sports Cricket from January 27; Alex Hales, Jason Roy, Saqib Mahmood, Chris Jordan and Will Smeed among the English players on show; Multan Sultans are defending champions of 20-over tournament
Thursday 27 January 2022 07:42, UK
The Pakistan Super League returns for its seventh season this week, with Multan Sultans looking to successfully defend their title.
After the sixth edition was moved to the UAE at the halfway mark due to Covid-19, the 2022 competition reverts to Pakistan, with Karachi hosting 15 of the 34 matches followed by Lahore for the business end.
Here's a quick look at the teams in the tournament - which you can watch live and in full on Sky Sports - and the players to look out for...
Coach: Azhar Mahmood
Captain: Shadab Khan
Best Finish: Champions (2016, 2018)
Last Season: Third
While he hasn't yet reached the heights he and his fans expect of him, Azam Khan's move to United could prove to be very beneficial. Islamabad's management are known for helping out young talent and given the fact Azam will have the likes of Paul Stirling and Alex Hales around him, it is possible that 2022 could be his year.
United's core bowling unit of Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf and skipper Shadab Khan has further been bolstered by South African paceman Marchant de Lange, who has a strike rate of 17.2 across all T20s. England left-armer Reece Topley is also in the United squad.
Islamabad were winners of the inaugural tournament and so far are the only team to win two titles, but have missed out on the trophy for the last three years.
After finishing rock bottom in 2020, United turned things around in 2021, winning eight out of their 10 matches to finish top of the table with 16 points, the most ever by a team in the PSL.
But they were then beaten twice in the play-offs, losing to Multan Sultans despite a 40-ball 70 from Usman Khawaja and then to Peshawar Zalmi in the second eliminator, when Hasan Ali's 16-ball 45 came in vain.
Coach: Peter Moores
Captain: Babar Azam
Best Finish: Champions (2020)
Last Season: Fourth
Babar Azam takes over the captaincy from Imad Wasim. In 2021, Babar hit the second-highest number of runs in a calendar year in T20s, 1,779 at an average of 48.08, showing that the added weight of captaining Pakistan certainly didn't impede his performances
Gloucestershire's Ian Cockbain could prove a smart pick for the Kings after he was brought in for the injured Tom Abell. The Liverpool-born batter smashed a 42-ball 71 to take his side the Adelaide Strikers to the Big Bash play-offs and in his first four matches averaged 63 at a strike rate of 141.
Nottinghamshire's Joe Clarke also had a strong Big Bash, with five fifties in 13 innings for Melbourne Stars at a strike rate of 151.26.
By drafting in Umaid Asif and the English pair of Lewis Gregory and Chris Jordan, Kings have also strengthened their pace bowling and lower-order hitting.
The Kings left qualification to the play-offs very late last season and went through in dramatic fashion. Heading into their final game, Kings had to win to overtake Lahore Qalandars in fourth spot.
At 122-5 after 17 overs, it seemed as though the Kings were heading towards a below-par score against Quetta Gladiators. Danish Aziz, however, had other plans, blitzing Jack Wildermuth to all parts of the ground to finish with 45 off 13 balls and help Kings to 176-7 - a score which included a PSL-record of 33 runs in one over.
That total proved enough to make the knockout rounds but they then lost a nail-biter to Zalmi in the first eliminator - Zalmi reaching their target of 176 with a ball to spare as Kings' hopes of back-to-back titles ended.
Coach: Aaqib Javed
Captain: Shaheen Shah Afridi
Best Finish: Runners-Up (2020)
Last Season: Fifth
Shaheen Shah Afridi will be leading from the front after being named captain and will be hoping that his fine form from 2021 carries on this season. Across all T20 cricket last year, Shaheen took 20 wickets in the powerplay at an average of 24.40.
Qalandars will once again have the spin master Rashid Khan, who recently took an astonishing 6-17 for Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash in what was his 300th T20 game. Haris Rauf is also in a strong bowling attack.
While Phil Salt and Harry Brook are on international duty for England in the West Indies, Durham seamer Matthew Potts has been roped in as a partial replacement for the latter. Potts has taken 49 wickets at an average of 22 in T20 cricket and finished the T20 Blast in 2019, 2020 and 2021 as his club's leading wicket taker.
Statistically speaking, Lahore Qalandars are the worst performing PSL team since the tournament's inception, with a win percentage of only 38.98 per cent. In fact, Qalandars finished bottom of the table every single year until they reached the 2020 final.
Last season, they missed out on fourth spot by virtue of net run-rate after a season of two parts. Qalandars won five of their first six games. However, they then lost their last four games, with the last fixture ending in a drubbing at the hands of Multan Sultans, with Lahore rolled for 89 as Shahnawaz Dahan bagged four wickets for five runs.
Qalandar's 10 points were almost good enough to take them through, but Karachi's victory over Quetta condemned them to another season without making the play-offs.
Coach: Andy Flower
Captain: Mohammad Rizwan
Best Finish: Champions (2021)
Last Season: Champions
Skipper Mohammad Rizwan had a stellar 2021. In all T20s last year, he became the first person ever to cross 2,000 T20 runs in a calendar year, scoring 2,036 runs at an average of 56.55
Rizwan will be joined by Multan's core powerhouses, Rilee Rossouw and Khushdil Shah and last year's Player of the Series Sohaib Maqsood, plus new addition Tim David, who hit 218 runs at a strike rate of 165.15 in this year's BBL for Hobart Hurricanes.
The bowling unit, meanwhile, is bolstered by England paceman David Willey. The left-armer could partner up with last season's leading wicket taker Shahnawaz Dahani, who took 20 wickets at an impressive average of 17.
Multan finished second in the group stage last season and then secured a comfortable victory over Islamabad in the Qualifier, which earned them a spot in the final, against 2017 champions Zalmi.
The trophy game was a rather one-sided affair. Maqsood's 35-ball 65 and Rossouw's 21-ball 50 helped Multan hit 116 runs in the last eight overs and post 206-4 - the first time a team has crossed 200 in a PSL final. Despite a few bursts from the middle order, regular wickets meant that Peshawar could only score 159, giving Sultans a 47-run victory and PSL glory.
Coach: James Foster
Captain: Wahab Riaz (stand-in to be announced as he is currently is isolation)
Best Finish: Champions (2017)
Last Season: Runners-Up
There is plenty of English interest, with Liam Livingstone - the owner of England's fastest-ever T20 hundred, from just 42 balls - Matt Parkinson, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Saqib Mahmood and Pat Brown in the Zalmi squad.
Before the Covid-enforced break in 2021, Mahmood took 12 wickets in five games at an average of 12.08 before flying back home. Brown, meanwhile, has been signed as a partial replacement for Livingstone until the latter's international commitments have come to a close.
Brown took 31 wickets in the 2018 Vitality Blast for Worcestershire, the second-most in the competition's history, and another successful season the following year propelled him into England's T20 squad where he played four times against New Zealand in November 2019, only to then suffer a stress fracture to his lower back in January 2020.
Zalmi have always had incredible batting prowess and this season seems no different with Haider Ali (currently isolating), Hazratullah Zazai and Livingstone.
Zalmi will be looking to add to their 2017 triumph and become the second team to win the PSL title twice.
Apart from in 2020, when they finished fourth, Zalmi have always ended up in the top three in the table - in fact they have finished first in the group stage in three out of four seasons and also have three runners-up finishes to their name, including last season.
Zalmi beat Kings in the first eliminator in 2021 with Afghanistan powerhouse Hazratullah's 77 from just 38 balls up top laying the platform. Hazratullah fired again in the second eliminator with a 44-ball 66, backed up by Jonathan Wells' 43-ball 55 and Shoaib Malik's blistering 32 off 10.
Zalmi were on their way to becoming only the second team to win a PSL title having had to go through the eliminators, but a comfortable victory for Sultans in the final ended that dream.
Coach: Moin Khan
Captain: Sarfaraz Ahmed
Best Finish: Champions (2019)
Last Season: Sixth
Quetta also have a sizeable number of English players. James Vince and Jason Roy will headline the batting when they arrive following the T20 tour of the West Indies but until then, Will Smeed may get his opportunity.
The 20-year old enjoyed a great start for Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred, striking 36 from 13 balls, 45 from 28 and then an unbeaten 65 from 38 in his first three games, showing glimpses of his immense talent. Ben Duckett will likely be part of Quetta's core batting unit, while Dan Lawrence and Luke Wood complete the side's English contingent.
Home players Mohammad Nawaz, Shahid Afridi, Iftikhar Ahmed and Sarfaraz Ahmed add to Quetta's batting ranks, while with the ball there is the veteran Sohail Tanvir, who will be supported by youngsters Naseem Shah and Mohammad Hasnain. Hasnain took seven wickets at an average of 15.71 for Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash, including three wickets in four balls in his debut over as he completed a triple-wicket maiden.
2019 champions Quetta have finished outside of the top four for the past two seasons. The 2021 campaign was a nightmare for Gladiators as they finished rock bottom with only two wins out of 10.
Nothing seemed to go right as they started their tournament with four straight losses, though they then became the first side in the competition to win a game batting first as they defended 176 against Sultans, a game in which debutant Usman Khan scored 82 from 50 balls.
Things did not pick up for Quetta after that, though, with just one win in their final five matches as they registered only four points - the lowest tally since the PSL became a six-team tournament in 2018.
