OTD| Multan Sultan won their first PSL title in 2021

The Indian Premier League(IPL) started the trend for every other country to start their own T20 franchise league. One of the newest leagues to come to the limelight is the Pakistan Super League(PSL), which started in 2016. This was a tournament owned by the PCB and also gave us some great matches as well. This gave a great platform for Pakistan Cricket as well going forward and it paved the way for some talented players in the mix.

The league started with 5 teams until the inclusion of Multan Sultans, who debuted in the 2018 season. The first two seasons for the team were underwhelming and where they finished 5th in consecutive seasons. It was the 2020 season where we saw the team give a great performance under the captaincy of Shan Masood but fell short in the playoffs.

2021: The year for the Sultans

The year was 2021 and this time the Sultans were under the leadership of Mohammad Rizwan this season. This was once again an eventful season for them as they finished second on the table and made it to their first-ever finals of the tournament which was set against Peshawar Zalmi, who were winners back in 2017. It was Multan Sultans who batted first and put up a massive total of 206 with great cameos at the top from Rizwan and Masood along with phenomenal half-centuries from Shoaib Maqsood and Rilee Rossouw. 

It was now up to the bowlers to make sure they restricted the Zalmi batters and they did that flawlessly. The pace trio of Sohail Tanvir, Imran Khan and Blessing Muazarabani along with the guile of the experienced leggie Imran Tahir were enough to restrict the powerful Peshawar batting lineup to just 159 and win the final by 47 runs on this current day of 24th June 2021 and get their hands on their first ever PSL title.