2020 Pakistan Super League


2020 Pakistan Super League is the fifth season of the Pakistan Super League, a franchise Twenty20 cricket league which was established by the Pakistan Cricket Board in 2015. It started on 20 February 2020. The league was held entirely in Pakistan for the first time.
The knockout stage of the tournament was suspended 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.

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

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.
Islamabad United Karachi Kings Lahore Qalandars Multan Sultans Peshawar Zalmi Quetta Gladiators

  • Imad Wasim
  • Babar Azam
  • Mohammad Rizwan
  • Iftikhar Ahmed
  • Mohammad Amir
  • Aamer Yamin
  • Usama Mir
  • Umer Khan
  • Alex Hales
  • Chris Jordan
  • Sharjeel Khan
  • Cameron Delport
  • Ali Khan
  • Chadwick Walton
  • Dan Lawrence
  • Umaid Asif
  • Mitchell McClenaghan
  • Liam Plunkett
  • Awais Zia
  • Arshad Iqbal
  • Waqas Maqsood
  • Sohail Akhtar
  • Mohammad Hafeez
  • Dilbar Hussain
  • Abid Ali
  • Agha Salman
  • Shaheen Afridi
  • Ben Dunk
  • David Wiese
  • Haris Rauf
  • Dane Vilas
  • Salman Butt
  • Usman Shinwari
  • Fakhar Zaman
  • Chris Lynn
  • Samit Patel
  • Seekkuge Prasanna
  • Jaahid Ali
  • Raja Farzan
  • Muhammad Faizan
  • Lendl Simmons
  • Salman Irshad
  • Maaz Khan
  • Shan Masood
  • Shahid Afridi
  • Rohail Nazir
  • Ali Shafiq
  • Mohammad Irfan
  • Mohammad Ilyas
  • James Vince
  • Junaid Khan
  • Moeen Ali
  • Rilee Rossouw
  • Zeeshan Ashraf
  • Ravi Bopara
  • Sohail Tanvir
  • Wayne Madsen
  • Khushdil Shah
  • Fabian Allen
  • Usman Qadir
  • Imran Tahir
  • Bilawal Bhatti
  • Asad Shafiq
  • Wahab Riaz
  • Sikandar Raza
  • Darren Sammy
  • Kamran Akmal
  • Hammad Azam
  • Shoaib Malik
  • Hasan Ali
  • Umar Amin
  • Imam-ul-Haq
  • Kieron Pollard
  • Tom Banton
  • 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
  • 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
  • Aarish Ali Khan
  • Azam Khan
  • Zahid Mahmood
  • Anwar Ali
  • Omair Yousuf

    • Venues

    The tournament took place entirely in Pakistan. Total 30 matches were played in four venues Lahore,
    Karachi, Rawalpindi and Multan. The opening ceremony took place in Karachi. The knockout stage was scheduled to take place in Lahore but was postponed for indefinite period after coronavirus outbreak.

    Match officials

    Umpires

    The league has been promoted on social media by the hashtag #HBLPSLV and anthem titled #TayyarHain.

    Trophy

    On 19 February 2020, the trophy for the league was unveiled by squash legend Jahangir Khan alongside PCB chairman Ehsan Mani at National Stadium, Karachi. The 65 centimetres long trophy weighing eight kilogrammes has a crescent and star with multi-coloured strips of enamel and is to be used in all future PSL events with every year's winning team name to be engraved on it.

    Ceremonies

    Opening ceremony

    The opening ceremony was held on 20 February 2020 at National Stadium, Karachi, prior to the first match of the season.
    The show began with the national anthem, before a group of drummers and trumpeters performed an instrumental version of the official PSL 2020 anthem. Later, the first performance of the night was a Sufi medley featuring singer Sanam Marvi, qawwals Fareed Ayaz and Abu Mohammad, and the band Soch. This was followed by Sajjad Ali, Aima Baig, Abrar-ul-Haq and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan taking the stage one after another to perform their songs. The ceremony concluded with Ali Azmat, Arif Lohar, Haroon and Asim Azhar performing the PSL 2020 anthem Tayyar Hain, accompanied by a fireworks display in the background.

    Commentators

    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.

    2019–20 coronavirus outbreak 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 coronavirus 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 the announced that the rest of the tournament is postponed for an indefinite period 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 who had.

    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 [|semifinals].

    Points table

    League progression

    Fixtures

    The PCB confirmed the fixtures for the tournament on 1 January 2020.
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    Knockout stage

    1st semi-final

    2nd semi-final

    Final

    Awards and statistics

    Most runs

    Most wickets