The 2020 Pakistan Super League, also known as PSL 5 and branded as HBL PSL V, was the fifth edition of the Pakistan Super League, a professional Twenty20 cricket league which was established by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). It started on 20 February 2020. The league was held entirely in Pakistan for the first time. Karachi Kings won their first title after defeating Lahore Qalandars by five wickets in the final.
The playoff stage of the tournament was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In late March 2020, the PCB were looking at whether to declare the winner of the tournament based on the league standings, or to play the matches at a later date. On 2 July 2020, the PCB announced that they plan to complete the season in November 2020. On 2 September 2020, the PCB confirmed the fixtures for the remaining matches.
Background In February 2019, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, announced that the fifth season of the tournament will be held entirely in Pakistan. In March 2019, Ehsan Mani, Chairman of Pakistan Cricket Board also expressed the desire to host all the matches of this season in Pakistan. On 1 January 2020, PCB announced fixtures for the tournament confirming that the entire tournament will take place in Pakistan.
Teams and squads
Islamabad United Karachi Kings Lahore Qalandars Multan Sultans Peshawar Zalmi Quetta Gladiators Shadab Khan (c) Luke Ronchi (wk) Amad Butt Faheem Ashraf Asif Ali Hussain Talat Muhammad Musa Rizwan Hussain Dale Steyn Colin Ingram Colin Munro Rumman Raees Zafar Gohar Phil Salt Akif Javed Dawid Malan Rassie van der Dussen Saif Badar Ahmed Safi Abdullah Imad Wasim (c) Shahid Afridi Iftikhar Ahmed Mohammad Amir Aamer Yamin Usama Mir Umer Khan Alex Hales Chris Jordan Sharjeel Khan Cameron Delport Ali Khan Chadwick Walton (wk) Dan Lawrence Umaid Asif Mitchell McClenaghan Liam Plunkett Awais Zia Arshad Iqbal Waqas Maqsood Sohail Akhtar (c) Mohammad Hafeez Dilbar Hussain Abid Ali Agha Salman Shaheen Afridi Ben Dunk (wk) David Wiese Haris Rauf Dane Vilas (wk) Salman Butt Usman Shinwari Fakhar Zaman Chris Lynn Samit Patel Seekkuge Prasanna Jaahid Ali (wk) Raja Farzan Muhammad Faizan Lendl Simmons Salman Irshad Maaz Khan Shan Masood (c) Shahid Afridi Rohail Nazir (wk) Ali Shafiq Babar Azam Mohammad Ilyas James Vince Junaid Khan Moeen Ali Rilee Rossouw Zeeshan Ashraf (wk) Ravi Bopara Sohail Tanvir Wayne Madsen Khushdil Shah Fabian Allen Usman Qadir Imran Tahir Bilawal Bhatti Asad Shafiq Wahab Riaz (c) Sikandar Raza Daren Sammy Kamran Akmal (wk) Hammad Azam Shoaib Malik Hasan Ali Umar Amin Imam-ul-Haq Kieron Pollard Tom Banton (wk) Liam Dawson Lewis Gregory Carlos Brathwaite Mohammad Mohsin Yasir Shah Rahat Ali Adil Amin Dwaine Pretorius Liam Livingstone Haider Ali Mohammad Amir Khan Aamir Ali Mohammad Irfan Ali Khan Sarfaraz Ahmed (c) (wk) Umar Akmal Ahmed Shehzad Ahsan Ali Ben Cutting Mohammad Hasnain Mohammad Nawaz Naseem Shah Shane Watson Jason Roy Fawad Ahmed Tymal Mills Abdul Nasir Sohail Khan Khurram Manzoor Keemo Paul Arish Ali Khan Azam Khan (wk) Zahid Mahmood Anwar Ali Omair Yousuf Additional players selected for Playoffs Sherfane Rutherford Wayne Parnell Tamim Iqbal Mohammad Imran Mahmudullah Adam Lyth Joe Denly Brendan Taylor Faf du Plessis Hardus Viljoen Khurram Shehzad Saqib Mahmood Sohaib Maqsood The players draft took place on 6 December, with the first round taking place on 3 November 2019. Ahead of the draft, each team was allowed to retain up to eight players from their previous squad. On 1 December 2019, PCB announced the retention players list with all six teams retaining a total of 45 players from the previous season.
Ahead of the play-offs, teams included new players in their squad as Faf du Plessis, Khurram Shehzad and Hardus Viljoen replaced Kieron Pollard, Mohammad Amir Khan and Liam Dawson respectively, in Peshawar Zalmi squad. In Multan Sultans squad Mahmudullah and Adam Lyth replaced Moeen Ali and Fabian Allen respectively. Lahore Qalandars replaced Chris Lynn, Salman Butt and Seekkuge Prasanna with Tamim Iqbal, Abid Ali and Agha Salman respectively. While, Karachi Kings replaced Chris Jordan and Ali Khan with Sherfane Rutherford and Waqas Maqsood. On 7 November 2020, Peshawar Zalmi replaced England's Liam Livingstone with his national side teammate Saqib Mahmood after he was included in the national team against South Africa. On 8 November, Multan Sultans's squad members Mahmudullah tested positive for COVID-19 making him unable to take part in the tournament and was replaced by Brendan Taylor, and James Vince was replaced by Joe Denly after he also tested positive for COVID-19. Kings' Mitchell McClenaghan and Zalmi's Daren Sammy were replaced by Wayne Parnell and Sohaib Maqsood respectively. Few days later, Hasan Ali of Peshawar Zalmi was ruled out of the tournament due to back-strain and was replaced by Mohammad Imran, and in Lahore Qalandars squad, Salman Irshad replaced Agha Salman who suffered an ankle injury.
Venues The tournament took place entirely in Pakistan. Total 34 matches were played in four venues Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Multan. The opening ceremony took place in Karachi. The playoffs were scheduled to take place in Lahore in November 2020, after being postponed for 8 months due to COVID-19 pandemic but were later shifted to Karachi.
Lahore Karachi Rawalpindi MultanGaddafi StadiumNational StadiumRawalpindi Cricket StadiumMultan Cricket StadiumCapacity: 27,000Capacity: 32,000Capacity: 17,000Capacity: 35,000 Matches: 11Matches: 12Matches: 8Matches: 3
Match officials Umpires
Faisal Afridi Aslam Bareach Aleem Dar Michael Gough Majid Hussain Nasir Hussain Richard Illingworth Imtiaz Iqbal Saqib Khan Ranmore Martinesz Tariq Rasheed Ahsan Raza Shozab Raza Rashid Riaz Asif Yaqoob
Referees Mohammad Anees Muhammad Javed Roshan Mahanama Aziz-ur-Rehman
Marketing
Anthem
The league was promoted on social media by the hashtag #HBLPSLV and anthem titled #TayyarHain. The opening ceremony was held in Karachi, for the first time in Pakistan.
Cancer awareness The childhood cancer awareness day and the breast cancer awareness day were observed on 22 February and 7 March respectively, with the stadiums themed as gold and pink respectively.
COVID-19 pandemic impact
The later part of the tournament was affected by COVID-19 pandemic. The matches were reduced from 34 to 33 and the playoffs were replaced by knockouts thus shortening the tournament by 4 days. The final was rescheduled from 22 March to 18 March. The matches from 13 March were announced to take place behind closed doors.
As many as eighteen players were confirmed to not take part in any future matches after the increased cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan as well as in the rest of the world, and also to avoid being stranded from their home countries due to border closures, as was the case for New Zealanders Colin Munro, Luke Ronchi, and Mitchell McClenaghan.
On 17 March 2020, it was announced that the knockout stage is suspended after English cricketer Alex Hales showed symptoms of the virus. Hales observed self-isolation on his return to England, whereas PCB released a statement saying that Hales was not the player suspected of coronavirus and instead refused to reveal the identity of the player suspected of having COVID-19.
League stage
Format The six teams played 10 matches each and got 2 points for every win, none for a loss and 1 point for a no result. The top four team in the group stage were qualified for the play-offs.
Points table
Summary
League progression
Fixtures The PCB confirmed the fixtures for the tournament on 1 January 2020.
Playoffs On 2 September 2020, PCB announced the venue and dates for the remaining four matches, with Gaddafi Stadium hosting all four; matches will be held on 14 and 15, with the Final scheduled on 17 November. However, later the matches were shifted to National Stadium in Karachi due to poor air quality in Lahore.
Qualifier
Eliminators
Eliminator 1
Eliminator 2
Final
Awards and statistics Most runs Player Team Runs Babar Azam Karachi Kings 12 11 473 Fakhar ZamanLahore Qalandars 12 12 325 Mohammad HafeezLahore Qalandars 13 12 312 Ben DunkLahore Qalandars 11 10 300 Chris LynnLahore Qalandars 8 8 284Source: ESPNcricinfo.com, Last updated: 18 November 2020 Babar Azam of Karachi Kings received the Green Cap.
Most wickets Player Team Shaheen AfridiLahore Qalandars 12 12 17 4/18 Mohammad HasnainQuetta Gladiators 9 9 15 4/25 Sohail Tanvir Multan Sultans 10 9 14 4/13 Dilbar HussainLahore Qalandars 11 10 14 4/24David WieseLahore Qalandars 11 10 12 3/27Source: ESPNcricinfo.com, Last updated: 18 November 2020 Shaheen Afridi of Lahore Qalandars received the Maroon Cap.
Notes
References
External links
Series home at ESPNcricinfo