The Multan Sultans is a franchise cricket team that represents Multan in the Pakistan Super League. The team made its PSL debut in the 2018 season. The team finished 5th after group stage matches, winning only three out of their ten matches and failing to reach the play-offs for the second consecutive year.
Background Multan Sultans are the sixth team to join the league. 2018 was their inaugural season. After the league was started in 2016, this was the first expansion of the league. Tom Moody serves as their coach. Prior to the start of the fourth season, Schon Properties failed to pay the $5.2 million annual fee, and Pakistan Cricket Board had cancelled their franchise. After the cancellation, the PCB took responsibility of all player and coach contracts while the public tender process took place to grant the repackaged rights of the team. The PCB asked interested bidders to collect the bidding documents from its offices by 14 December 2018. The financial proposal of the technically qualified bidders is due to be opened on 18 December 2018. On 20 December 2018, PSL announced that Ali Tareen-led Multan consortium had won the franchise rights for the sixth team for a seven-year period, by exceeding the PCB's reserve price set at $5.21 million per year. Tareen's bid was for $6.35 million per year, making this the most expensive franchise.
Squad Players with international caps are shown in bold Ages are given as of the first match of the season, 14 February 2019 No.NameNationalityBirth dateBatting styleBowling styleYear signedNotesBatsmen14James VinceRight-handedRight-arm medium 2019Overseas30Shan MasoodLeft-handedRight-arm medium-fast20181Umar SiddiqLeft-handedRight-arm off break201832Laurie EvansRight-handedRight-arm medium-fast2019Overseas49Steve SmithRight-handedRight-arm leg spin2019Overseas24Joe DenlyRight-handedRight-arm leg spin2019OverseasAll-rounders7Nauman AliRight-handedSlow left-arm orthodox201910Shahid AfridiRight-handedRight-arm leg spin201912Andre RussellRight-handedRight-arm fast2019Overseas18Shoaib MalikRight-handedRight-arm off break2018Captain73Hammad AzamRight-handedRight-arm medium201954Dan ChristianRight-handedRight-arm medium-fast2019OverseasWicket-keepers29Nicholas PooranLeft-handed—2018Overseas78Shakeel AnsarRight-handed—201923Tom MooresLeft-handed—2019Overseas25Johnson CharlesRight-handedSlow left-arm orthodox2019OverseasBowlers33Ali ShafiqRight-handedRight-arm medium-fast201983Junaid KhanRight-handedLeft-arm fast201817Irfan KhanRight-handedRight-arm leg break201826Mohammad AbbasRight-handedRight-arm fast-medium201827Mohammad IrfanRight-handedLeft-arm fast201927Mohammad IlyasRight-handedRight-arm medium-fast201993Chris GreenRight-handedRight-arm off break2019OverseasMohammad JunaidLeft-handedSlow left-arm orthodox201932Qais AhmedRight-handedRight-arm leg break2019Overseas
Kit manufacturers and sponsors
Shirt sponsor (chest) Shirt sponsor (back) Chest branding Sleeve brandingPepsiAfsanehLay'sOLX, Asia Ghee Mill F.C.
Points table
Season summary
Multan Sultans started their season against Karachi Kings with a close defeat by just 7 runs. In the next game against Islamabad United they registered their first win after restricting the opponents to only 125 runs and managing to chase the target pretty easily. After their first five games, they lost 4 and won only once. They had their chance against Lahore Qalandars where they posted the highest total batting first of the tournament (200), but bad bowling in last few overs costed them the match, resulting in losing the match on the last ball. They won their second match of the season against Islamabad United by 6 wickets. Team's bad performance continued as they suffer three more loses, resulting in them being the first team to be eliminated from the season.
After playing ten matches, they managed to get over the line in three matches with the 3rd win coming against Lahore Qalandars in their final game of the season, played at National Stadium. As a result, They finished 5th on the points table for the second consecutive year.
Skipper Shoaib Malik was the team's leading runs-scorer with 266 runs, while Shahid Afridi with 10 wickets in 8 matches was the team's leading wicket-taker for the season.
References