# 2019 Multan Sultans season

The Multan Sultans is a franchise cricket team that represents Multan in the Pakistan Super League. The team made its PSL debut in the 2018 season. The team finished 5th after group stage matches, winning only three out of their ten matches and failing to reach the play-offs for the second consecutive year.

## Background

Multan Sultans are the sixth team to join the league. 2018 was their inaugural season. After the league was started in 2016, this was the first expansion of the league. Tom Moody serves as their coach. Prior to the start of the fourth season, Schon Properties failed to pay the $5.2 million annual fee, and Pakistan Cricket Board had cancelled their franchise.. After the cancellation, the PCB took responsibility of all player and coach contracts while the public tender process took place to grant the repackaged rights of the team. The PCB asked interested bidders to collect the bidding documents from its offices by 14 December 2018. The financial proposal of the technically qualified bidders is due to be opened on 18 December 2018. On 20 December 2018, PSL announced that Ali Tareen-led Multan consortium had won the franchise rights for the sixth team for a seven-year period, by exceeding the PCB's reserve price set at $5.21 million per year. Tareen's bid was for $6.35 million per year, making this the most expensive franchise.

## Squad

* Players with international caps are shown in bold
* Ages are given as of the first match of the season, 14 February 2019
| No. | Name | Nationality | Birth date | Batting style | Bowling style | Year signed | Notes |
| Batsmen ||||||||
| 14 | James Vince | England | (1991-03-14)14 March 1991 (aged 27) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium | 2019 | Overseas |
| 30 | Shan Masood | Pakistan | (1989-10-14)14 October 1989 (aged 29) | Left-handed | Right-arm medium-fast | 2018 | |
| 1 | Umar Siddiq | Pakistan | (1992-12-30)30 December 1992 (aged 26) | Left-handed | Right-arm off break | 2018 | |
| 32 | Laurie Evans | England | (1987-10-12)12 October 1987 (aged 31) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium-fast | 2019 | Overseas |
| 49 | Steve Smith | Australia | (1989-06-02)2 June 1989 (aged 29) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg spin | 2019 | Overseas |
| 24 | Joe Denly | England | (1986-03-16)16 March 1986 (aged 32) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg spin | 2019 | Overseas |
| All-rounders ||||||||
| 7 | Nauman Ali | Pakistan | (1986-10-07)7 October 1986 (aged 32) | Right-handed | Slow left-arm orthodox | 2019 | |
| 10 | Shahid Afridi | Pakistan | (1980-03-01)1 March 1980 (aged 38) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg spin | 2019 | |
| 12 | Andre Russell | West Indies | (1988-04-29)29 April 1988 (aged 30) | Right-handed | Right-arm fast | 2019 | Overseas |
| 18 | Shoaib Malik | Pakistan | (1982-02-01)1 February 1982 (aged 37) | Right-handed | Right-arm off break | 2018 | Captain |
| 73 | Hammad Azam | Pakistan | (1991-03-16)16 March 1991 (aged 27) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium | 2019 | |
| 54 | Dan Christian | Australia | (1983-05-04)4 May 1983 (aged 35) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium-fast | 2019 | Overseas |
| Wicket-keepers ||||||||
| 29 | Nicholas Pooran | West Indies | (1995-10-02)2 October 1995 (aged 23) | Left-handed | — | 2018 | Overseas |
| 78 | Shakeel Ansar | Pakistan | (1978-11-11)11 November 1978 (aged 40) | Right-handed | — | 2019 | |
| 23 | Tom Moores | England | (1996-09-04)4 September 1996 (aged 22) | Left-handed | — | 2019 | Overseas |
| 25 | Johnson Charles | West Indies | (1989-01-14)14 January 1989 (aged 30) | Right-handed | Slow left-arm orthodox | 2019 | Overseas |
| Bowlers ||||||||
| 33 | Ali Shafiq | Pakistan | (1996-11-16)16 November 1996 (aged 22) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium-fast | 2019 | |
| 83 | Junaid Khan | Pakistan | (1989-12-24)24 December 1989 (aged 29) | Right-handed | Left-arm fast | 2018 | |
| 17 | Irfan Khan | Pakistan | (1989-08-01)1 August 1989 (aged 29) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg break | 2018 | |
| 26 | Mohammad Abbas | Pakistan | (1990-03-10)10 March 1990 (aged 28) | Right-handed | Right-arm fast-medium | 2018 | |
| 27 | Mohammad Irfan | Pakistan | (1982-06-06)6 June 1982 (aged 36) | Right-handed | Left-arm fast | 2019 | |
| 27 | Mohammad Ilyas | Pakistan | (1999-03-21)21 March 1999 (aged 19) | Right-handed | Right-arm medium-fast | 2019 | |
| 93 | Chris Green | Australia | (1993-10-01)1 October 1993 (aged 25) | Right-handed | Right-arm off break | 2019 | Overseas |
| | Mohammad Junaid | Pakistan | (2002-03-21)21 March 2002 (aged 16) | Left-handed | Slow left-arm orthodox | 2019 | |
| 32 | Qais Ahmed | Afghanistan | (2000-08-15)15 August 2000 (aged 18) | Right-handed | Right-arm leg break | 2019 | Overseas |

## Points table

| Pos | Teamvte | Pld | W | L | T | NR | Pts | NRR |
| 1 | Peshawar Zalmi (R) | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.828 |
| 2 | Quetta Gladiators (C) | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0.376 |
| 3 | Islamabad United (3rd) | 10 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0.127 |
| 4 | Karachi Kings (4th) | 10 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 10 | −0.673 |
| 5 | Multan Sultans | 10 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.173 |
| 6 | Lahore Qalandars | 10 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 6 | −0.837 |
* The top 4 teams qualified for the playoffs
* Advanced to Qualifier
* Advanced to Eliminator 1
Notes:
* C = Champions;
* R = Runner-up;
* (x) = Position at the end of the tournament;

## Season summary

Multan Sultans started their season against Karachi Kings with a close defeat by just 7 runs. In the next game against Islamabad United they registered their first win after restricting the opponents to only 125 runs and managing to chase the target pretty easily. After their first five games, they lost 4 and won only once. They had their chance against Lahore Qalandars where they posted the highest total batting first of the tournament (200), but bad bowling in last few overs costed them the match, resulting in losing the match on the last ball. They won their second match of the season against Islamabad United by 6 wickets. Team's bad performance continued as they suffer three more loses, resulting in them being the first team to be eliminated from the season.
After playing ten matches, they managed to get over the line in three matches with the 3rd win coming against Lahore Qalandars in their final game of the season, played at National Stadium. As a result, They finished 5th on the points table for the second consecutive year.
Skipper Shoaib Malik was the team's leading runs-scorer with 266 runs, while Shahid Afridi with 10 wickets in 8 matches was the team's leading wicket-taker for the season.