Peshawar Zalmi

Franchise history

On 3 December 2015, the Pakistan Cricket Board PCB unveiled the owners of five city-based franchises for the first season of the Pakistan Super League. The Peshawar franchise was sold to Haier for US$16 million for a ten-year period.

2016 season

Peshawar began their 2016 season well, winning their first two matches. After a loss to Quetta Gladiators the team went on to win six of their eight group stage matches and finished first in the points table, qualifying for the play-offs.

The first play-off match was against Quetta in qualifier 1. The match came down to the last ball Quetta winning by one run, Peshawar scoring 132 in reply to Quetta's 133. As a result of their first-place position in the group table, Peshawar then went on to play Islamabad United in the second qualifier match. Peshawar also lost this match and were eliminated from the tournament.

Wahab Riaz with 15 wickets was the leading wicket-taker for the team. Tamim Iqbal with 267 runs was team's leading run scorer.

2017 season

Peshawar traded Aamer Yamin for Sohaib Maqsood of Lahore Qalandars during the off-season. During the 2017 Pakistan Super League players draft they retained 10 players and signed eight, including Overseas players Shakib Al Hasan, Eoin Morgan, Chris Jordan and Alex Hales.Shakib and Tamim were not available for selection during the initial stage of tournament due to national duties as they were in India to play only test match.Later Alex Hales and Shakib Al Hasan were replaced with Tillakaratne Dilshan and Marlon Samuels and Mohammad Shahzad was replaced with Andre Fletcher while Tamim Iqbal was replaced with Samit Patel.

In their first game of PSL 2017, Peshawar Zalmi lost to the Islamabad United by 7 wickets. In their next game against Karachi Kings, Zalmi won by 7 wickets in pursuit of 120. Eoin Morgan starred in the chase with an unbeaten innings of 80 off 57 balls. Following this the Zalmi were involved in a low-scoring thriller with the Lahore Qalandars that saw the former collapse in the chase of just 60 runs before getting over the line with 3 wickets to spare.

As the tournament moved to Sharjah, Zalmi's first game against Quetta Gladiators was abandoned after repeated showers and the two teams shared the points from the bout. Following this, against Islamabad United, the Zalmis lost a hard-fought game that went down to the last ball. After being put in to bat by United, Zalmi could only manage a below-par score of 137 and never really got going. But the team's bowlers bowled exceedingly well to make a contest out of it. In their final game of the Sharjah leg, the Zalmis continued their losing streak after being beaten by Karachi Kings in a thrilling contest. Setting up a target of 175, the Kings had the Zalmis reduced to 69-6 before Shahid Afridi and Darren Sammy combined in a 70-run partnership that almost won the game for the Zalmis. However, they couldn't see the game through as the Zalmis fell short by 9 runs.

With the tournament shifting back to Dubai, the Zalmis registered consecutive wins against Lahore Qalandars and Quetta Gladiators respectively. Against the Qalandars, the team put up a target of 167 and then successful defended it after inducing a batting collapse of 5 wickets for 6 runs from the opposition. In the end prevailing by 17 runs and securing a play-off spot. But with the Galdiators, the team suffered a batting collapse of their own. Chasing a below-par total of 129, the Zalmis were at one time reduced to 52-6 before a vintage performance from Shahid Afridi, who scored 45 off 23 balls, ensured that his team won with 2 wickets left intact. In the first playoffs (qualifier 1) they faced Gladiators at Sharjah it proved to be a replica of last year qualifier 1 where quetta clinched 1 run win over Zalmi. after sent into bat by Zalmi quetta gave a huge target of 200 thanks to Ahmed Shahzad's 71 off 38 balls.In reply Zalmi had a poor start losing 2 early wickets for less then 10 runs,then came Mohammad Hafeez who started hitting Gladiators all over the stadium he with Dawid Malan put up a 100+ runs partnership.After Hafeez got out Shahid Afridi came looking in best six hitting foam scoring 34 off just 17 balls shifting match in zalmi favour, but got out at wrong time and as a result Zalmi collapsed in the last over of the match. Left arm spinner for quetta, Muhammad Nawaz was the bowler who didn't let zalmi to score 2 runs off last 3 balls hence, Gladiators progressed into the final and zalmi into the qualifier 2. where they defeated Karachi Kings by 24 runs.Batting first Zalmi scored 181 for 3 due to Kamran Akmal's brilliant 104 runs from 65 balls.Wahab Riaz and Chris Jordan 3-for took Zalmi into the final for the first time ever.Kamran was adjudged man of the match in the end.

In the final, Zalmis defeated Quetta Gladiators - the runners-up of the inaugural edition of the PSL, by 58 runs batting first. Zalmis left-arm spinner Mohammad Asghar took 3 wickets for 16 runs. In the first innings, Gladiators' Rayad Emrit took 2 wickets in the 17th over, which left the score at 112 for 6 but Darren Sammy clubbed 33 runs in the last two overs taking the Zalmis total to 148.

Team identity

On 13 December 2015 Javed Afridi owner of the team revealed the team name and the official logo of the team in Army Public School Peshawar. The word Zalmi is a Pashto language word meaning youth. The logo of the team is a fusion of a traditional Peshawari turban with cricket stumps. The logo has three, shades blue, yellow and white, signifying the pride of the region, the skies and the energy of the people.

The team's kit colours are yellow and blue.New kits were introduced ahead of second season the new look team shirt carries the same colour theme as of previous editions yellow and blue but there is a slight change in the designs as Dri-FIT fabric is being used to observe sweat to keep players comfortable,kit was designed by Nike. The main title sponsers in 2016 season was Bahria town, the largest real-estate developers and Investors in Pakistan and the largest private housing society in Asia.TCS Connect was team's partner in 2016 season. General Petroleum (GP) is the title sponser in 2017 season. Others which also have sponsorship deals are Giggly Boom Boom Bubble, Jivi, MX47,Super Power (a Motorcycle company), Enviro, Infinix and Khaleej Times. Khyber News, Kay2 TV, Pakhtun Entertainment and Pashto 1 are their regional media partners while Daily Jang and PTV Sports are team's official media partners.

Actors Hamza Ali Abbasi and Humaima Malik were team's star ambassadors for 2016 season.

Several musical anthems have been made for the team, and were released by Beyond Records.

Philanthropy

In 2017, Peshawar Zalmi joined hands with International Rescue Committee to raise awareness of education in Pakistan.The franchise is also actively involved in Pakistan in giving sports education to children through sports camps and training all across Pakistan.Team have largely contributed in charity works and as for 2017 Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre are team's official charity.In 2016 they invited Army Public School attack survivors to watch PSL Live from the stands.Around 150 students and staff members from the school were invited to attend the inauguration ceremony of the first edition of PSL.In 2017 they took cancer patients of the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre for free to Dubai and gave the children a once in a life time opportunity to fly out of the country and make beautiful memories together.Eoin Morgan member of 2017 squad donated zalmi's Kit which he wore during the course of 2017 season to cancer patients of Shoukat Khanum Memorial Hospital.

Current squad

Players with international caps are listed in bold.

Captains

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Last updated: 7 March 2017

Head-to-head record

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Last updated: 5 March 2017