History of the Pakistan Super League
The league, when it started, included five teams: Karachi Kings, Quetta Gladiators, Peshawar Zalmi, Islamabad United, and Lahore Qalandars.
The first season which was supposed to be played between December 2014 and January 2015 failed to go through because out of the six companies that showed interest in investing only two managed to produce a bank guarantee of more than $3 million.
[5][6] The season featured five teams namely Islamabad United, Karachi Kings, Quetta Gladiators, Peshawar Zalmi, and Lahore Qalandars.
The final was won by Islamabad United who were crowned the first ever champions of the franchise winning by six wickets with West Indies' Dwayne Smith being the stand out performer for his 73 runs off 51 balls.
It was unveiled at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium with captains of the five franchises alongside Najam Sethi, Rameez Raja, and Andrew Mojica.
[11][12] The opening ceremony of the season was hosted by Fahad Mustafa and featured performances from Ali Zafar, Shehzad Roy, and Jamaican rapper Shaggy.
The board managed to bring the two eliminators to Lahore with the final being played in Karachi - the first major international game in the city since the attack on the Sri Lankan team in 2009.
It was hosted by Hareem Fatima, Bilal Ashraf, and Rameez Raja with performances from Abida Parveen, Shehzad Roy, Ali Zafar, and American musician Jason Durelo.
As was the case in the last season, many key players decided against coming to Pakistan and the hit was felt more by the Gladiators than the Zalmis as Kevin Pieterson, Shane Watson, and Ben Laughlin all refused to participate.
[21] The second eliminator that was also played in Lahore had a lot of highlights, but the most notable of them was when a helicopter belonging to Pakistan Army was used to dry the ground and make it playable after heavy rain.
The ceremony was hosted by Ramiz Raja and featured performances from Boney M, Pakistani rock band Junoon, Aima Baig, and the creators of the PSL's official anthem for the 2019 season Shuja Haider, Fawad Khan and Young Desi.
American musician Pitbull was also supposed to be among the list of celebrities to perform at the ceremony but had to cancel due to reported technical issues with his flight to Dubai.
There were strict security protocols enforced throughout the city as stars including Shane Watson, Darren Sammy, Kieran Pollard and others had all decided to come to Pakistan to complete the tournament.
[30] The tournament kicked off with defending champions Islamabad United winning against Lahore Qalandars after a special innings from Asif Ali.
The closing ceremony lineup included super hit performances by Junoon, Fawad Khan, Shuja Haider, Aima Baig, Young Desi, and Abrar ul Haq.
[32] Gladiators, who were playing the final for a record third time won the tournament after they chased down Zalmi's total of 138 runs with eight wickets to spare.
The foreign players were all sent back to mitigate the risk of spread of the virus after a few games were played behind closed doors without an audience.
In July 2018, the PCB announced the brand value of the PSL to be at $230 million as calculated by Paris-based media conglomerate Lagardere Sports and New York-based firm Nielsen Corporation.
In 2017, batsman Sharjeel Khan alongside Khalid Latif and Nasir Jamshed were found guilty of spot fixing and were banned from taking part in the competition.
