Pakistan

Toss Afghanistan chose to bowl vs Pakistan Afghanistan won the toss and opted to bowl first in the final T20I in Sharjah against Pakistan. In a series that the hosts have already wrapped up with victories on Friday and Sunday, Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan won the toss for the first time and opted to stick

For the second game in succession, Shadab Khan opted to set a target after calling correctly at the toss as Pakistan look to stay alive in the three-match series against Afghanistan. They made one change to the side that lost the first game by six wickets, replacing a fast-bowling allrounder in Faheem Ashraf with a

Toss Pakistan chose to bat vs Afghanistan Pakistan chose to bat in the first of three T20Is between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Shadab Khan, who stands in as captain for the rested Babar Azam, opted to set a target for the hosts. Pakistan feature a relatively new-look side featuring four debutants. Opener Saim Ayub, batter Tayyab

Pakistan captain Babar Azam has received the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the third-highest civilian honour in Pakistan. It was conferred onto him at a ceremony in Lahore on Pakistan Day, which is a national holiday in the country. Babar, 28, becomes the youngest person to ever receive the honour, beating out another cricketer, Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed. Sarfaraz

Mohammad Yousuf, who had been appointed the interim batting coach of the Pakistan men’s team, has withdrawn from the upcoming T20I series against Afghanistan in Sharjah citing personal reasons. As a result, Abdur Rehman, the interim head coach, has taken over the batting coach’s responsibilities too. Yousuf had been announced as the interim head coach

Imran Butt will captain the Pakistan A side, known as the Pakistan Shaheens, for an upcoming tour of Zimbabwe to play Zimbabwe A. Shahnawaz Dahani, who missed the PSL with a finger injury, has also been included in the 16-man squad. Hussain Talat will serve as the vice-captain, while wicketkeeper Rohail Nazir also returns to

Lahore Qalandars 200 for 6 (Shafique 65, Shaheen 44*, Mir 3-24) beat Multan Sultans 199 for 8 (Rossouw 52, Shaheen 4-51, Rashid 2-26) by one run The PSL ends as it begun. A clinical Lahore Qalandars produced a stone-cold death-bowling performance to pip Multan Sultans by one run, just as they did to kick off

Multan Sultans 160 for 5 (Pollard 57, Rizwan 33, Haris 3-34) beat Lahore Qalandars 76 all out (Billings 19, Rauf 15, Cottrell 3-20) by 84 runs Earlier this week, Lahore Qalandars coach Aqib Javed told ESPNcricinfo about how other teams in the PSL prioritised power hitters, while Qalandars wanted to go for the best bowlers.

Pakistan have named Abdur Rehman as interim head coach and Umar Gul as bowling coach for the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan. Mohammad Yousuf and Abdul Majeed will continue as batting coach and fielding coach, respectively. Rehman is a seasoned coach in the domestic set-up with more than a decade’s experience and is among renowned

The new PCB selection committee for the national senior men’s team, headed by Haroon Rasheed, has formed a new policy on managing workloads and player rotation. With the series against Afghanistan not a part of the ICC’s Future Tours Programme, it gave the selectors a chance to try out their new plan. “Afghanistan series is

Karachi Kings 196 for 7 (Akhlaq 51, Imad 45, T Tahir 40, Talat 2-24) beat Lahore Qalandars (Talat 25, Javed 2-8) by 86 runs Having already qualified for the play-offs, Lahore Qalandars rested their captain Shaheen Shah Afridi and lost their final league game to Karachi Kings but that won’t worry them so much as

Peshawar Zalmi 179 for 8 (Haris 79, Rajapaksa 41, Hasan 3-39) beat Islamabad United 166 (Ashraf 38, Shahzad 3-19, Muqueem 3-37) by 13 runs Quetta Gladiators’ defeat on Saturday night night confirmed this game would be little more than a warm-up for when these two sides meet in the Eliminator on Thursday. And it was

The captaincy question first came up in January, when the PCB had reviewed the national team’s structure after a disappointing home season in 2022-23. The new PCB management, headed by Najam Sethi, had then indicated their willingness to signal to players and coaches that they will “challenge the status quo if necessary”, and split the

Rossouw had a strong support cast helping him. Pollard chipped in with 52 off just 24 balls. Their third-wicket partnership – 99 off 43 balls – formed the bedrock of this chase. A little while earlier, when Sultans were bowling, 21-year old seamer Abbas Afridi, picked up 4 for 39. Three of those wickets came

Islamabad United 209 for 8 (Ashraf 51*, Shadab 44, Munro 40, Anwar 3-33, Ihsanullah 2-35) beat Multan Sultans 205 for 5 (Masood 75, David 60, Shadab 2-26) by two wickets Sometimes crash, bang, wallop is fun. It is the principle on which T20 cricket was founded on (look away, haters) and it came to the

Peshawar Zalmi 207 all out (Ayub 68, Babar 50, Shaheen 4-31) beat Lahore Qalandars 172 all out (Talat 63, Shaheen 52, Wahab 3-17) by 35 runs Peshawar Zalmi put in their best performance of the season to brush aside Lahore Qalandars by 50 runs. A sensational knock from Saim Ayub, whose 36-ball 68 gave Zalmi

Lahore Qalandars 148 (Raza 71*) beat Quetta Gladiators 131 for 7 (Rauf 3-22) by 17 runs Defending champions Lahore Qalandars staged a magnificent recovery from 50 for 7 to win by 17 runs at Gaddafi Stadium and keep Quetta Gladiators rooted to the bottom of the PSL table. Sikandar Raza was their hero with the

Karachi’s dream start turned into a full on nightmare when Rovman Powell joined in on the fun, scoring 64 off just 34 balls. He hit six fours and four sixes during his stay; basically, he was able to hit a boundary once every three or four balls. Sixty-five runs – 33% of the total –

Najam Sethi, the PCB chairman, made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday night and said Maroof would continue to be available for selection as a player. “It has been an honour for me to captain my country and I feel fortunate to have led an incredible and hardworking bunch of cricketers,” Maroof, 31, said in

Lahore Qalandars 200 for 7 (Shafique 45, Zaman 36, Billings 33, Curran 3-34) beat Islamabad United 90 (Gurbaz 23, Munro 18, Wiese 3-17, Raza 2-6, Rashid 2-8) by 110 runs This was a match between Lahore Qalandars bowlers and Islamabad United’s batters. But really, it was no match between Qalandars’ bowlers and United’s batters. In

The PCB and Punjab government have reached an agreement that will see PSL games go ahead as scheduled in Lahore and Rawalpindi. The PCB head Najam Sethi tweeted on Sunday, as Lahore’s first PSL game, between Lahore Qalandars and Peshawar Zalmi was underway, that the board and Punjab government had agreed “to share cost of

The PCB and the caretaker Punjab government have hit a roadblock in a financial dispute over the cost of security for the PSL games in Lahore and Rawalpindi. The PCB has set a deadline of Saturday to decide the fate of the remaining PSL games in Punjab province, and if the deadlock remains intact, the

Islamabad United 220 for 6 (Azam 97, Asif 42, Smith 2-41) beat Quetta Gladiators 157 all out (Hafeez 48, Sarfaraz 41, Farooqi 3-28) by 63 runs It was a contest between an elite PSL team, and, frankly, a PSL has-been. Quetta Gladiators have been the poorest side of this league since they lifted their only

The remainder of the PSL might be moved in its entirety to Karachi after a financial dispute between the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the interim Punjab government. The decision will be made following a meeting, chaired in the afternoon with all franchise owners. The dispute concerns how to split the security costs of hosting

Islamabad United 159 for 4 (Gurbaz 62, van der Dussen 42, Neesham 1-21) beat Peshawar Zalmi 156 for 8 (Babar 75*, Haris 40, Hasan 3-35) by 6 wickets This was less of a game, more of a template. Islamabad United have been playing this sort of match for eight years, and when it clicks, no

Karachi Kings needed 37 off the final 9 balls against Multan Sultans, all but mathematically out of the contest. But amidst a slew of extras and a litany of sixes, it was suddenly down to 6 off four balls, with 31 coming off the previous five. In the end, the Kings would still fall short

Multan Sultans 190 for 4 (Miller 52, Rizwan 50, Pollard 32, Raees 1-25) beat Islamabad United 138 (Van der Dussen 49, Munro 31, Afridi 4-22, Ilyas 2-12) by 52 runs After two wins against struggling sides, this from Multan Sultans wasn’t so much a victory as it was a statement of intent. A tremendous bowling

The PSL is set to continue uninterrupted despite a major terror attack in Karachi on Friday. Both Karachi Kings and Quetta Gladiators, who will face-off at Karachi’s National Stadium on Saturday, will field full-strength sides for the game, the PCB said. Terrorists from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) launched an attack on the Karachi Police office

Zalmi have a fair few entertaining hitters flanking Babar Azam, who fell early, with Sultans’ golden boy Ihsanullah removing him with his first ball. It cleared the way for an exquisitely fun partnership between two of Pakistan’s brightest T20 batting prospects. Haris looked every inch the Imran Nazir regeneration, slogging to all parts to keep

Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum, the Pakistan high court judge who headed the inquiry that eventually led to life bans for Saleem Malik and Ata-ur-Rehman and implicated a number of other Pakistani players in the first wave of match-fixing in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has died. He was 79. Justice Qayyum was a prominent