Quetta Gladiators

Franchise history

In December 2015 the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) unveiled the owners of all five city-based franchises for the inaugural season the Pakistan Super League. The Quetta franchise was sold to the Karachi-based company Omar Associates for US$11 Million.

2016 season

Quetta began their 2016 campaign with comfortable wins over Islamabad United and Karachi Kings before edging past Peshawar Zalmi in a closely fought match. A defeat against Lahore Qalanders was followed by a big win over Islamabad in which New Zealand all-rounder Grant Elliott, who had just joined the team, proved instrumental in the win as he took 3 key wickets to restrict United to 117. The win took the team to the top of the table and was followed by a victory against Karachi which saw the Gladiators confirmed as the first team to make the play-off stage of the 2016 season.

Quetta finished 2nd in the PSL table behind Peshawar, winning six of their eight matches. In the first qualifier match Quetta defeated Pershawar by one run, with the Gladiators scoring 133 thanks to a score of 53 by Kevin Pietersen and 37 by Kumar Sangakkara. In reply Peshawar scored 132 after taking the match to the last ball. This win qualified Quetta for the final in which they lost to Islamabad by six wickets, posting a total of 174/7 with scores of 64 by Ahmed Shehzad and 55 by Sangakkara.

Ahmed Shehzad finished as the team's leading run scorer with 290 runs, whilst Mohammad Nawaz took with 13 wickets to be the leading wicket taker for the team.

2017 season

Kumar Sangakkara and Grant Elliott were released by Quetta just a few days before the PSL transfer window came to an end in September 2016. Sangakara was taken by Karachi Kings while Grant Elliot joined the Lahore Qalandars.

Quetta retained 10 players in advance of the 2017 Pakistan Super League players draft and signed eight during the draft. The signings including foreign players Rovman Powell, Carlos Brathwaite, Tymal Mills, and David Willey. However, of these only Tymal Mills will be joining the team as the other players were unavailable. Mahmudullah Riad and Rilee Rossouw joined the team as a replacement for Mohammad Nabi and David Willey while Nathan McCullum and Thisara Perera replaced Rovman Powell and Carlos Brathwaite. A number of reasons have forced the changes, from injury to some players to others not getting no-objection certificates to scheduling clashes with international cricket.

In their opening game of the 2017 season, Quetta Gladiators managed to defend a target of 137 against the Lahore Qalanders. The match was closely fought and went down to the penultimate over where the Gladiators won by 8 runs. Debutant Hasan Khan emerging player of Quetta was adjudged player-of-the-match for his all round performance of 2 important wickets and a quick-fire 16 runs at the end. In the following match, Gladiators beat Karachi Kings by 7 wickets. After an initial stutter in pursuit of 160, that saw them at 30/3, Riley Roussow and Sarfaraz Ahmed combined in an unbeaten partnership of 130 for the fourth wicket to take the Gladiators home with 5 balls to spare. Rilee Rossouw was adjudged man-of-the-match for his unbeaten, match-winning knock of 76 off 53 balls.

During the second leg of the tournament, in Sharjah, the Gladiators suffered their first loss of the season at the hands of defending champions, Islamabad United. After putting up a target of 149 in their 20-overs, that saw the Gladiators struggling to accelerate their innings, they lost by 5 wickets. In the following game, against Peshawar Zalmi, the match was abandoned after repeated showers and the two teams shared the points from the bout. Continuing their campaign, the Gladiators successful chased down 201 against the Lahore Qalandars in what many pundits labeled as the match-of-the-season. Kevin Pieterson and Sarfaraz Ahmad were instrumental in the chase through a 101-run partnership. The former who was going through a lean patch in this PSL struck form and hit 88 from 42 balls - including 8 sixes, as the Gladiators plundered 78 runs from the last 3.5 overs to seal the match.

As the tournament shifted back to Dubai, the Gladiators continued their winning streak by beating Karachi Kings by 6-wickets. The team's chase of 155 was commandeered by a 105-run opening partnership between Ahmad Shahzad 54(40) and Asad Shafiq 45(33) - the highest of this edition's PSL. This win also effectively made the Gladaiotrs the first team to qualify for the play-offs. Continuing on, the team lost both of their last two matches of the league stage - against Islamabad United and Peshawar Zalmi respectively. In the former, the Gladiators imploded in the chase of 166 despite a 2nd-wicket partnership of 133 between Kevin Pieterson 69(43) and Ahmad Shahzad 53(43). Requiring, seven runs from the last two overs, the team fell short by 1 run. In the next match, the Gladiators could only manage a below-par score of 128 batting first. However, the team fielded and bowled quite well to have the chasing Zalmis reduce to 52-6 before Shahid Afridi took his team home with 2-wickets to spare.

In the final, Gladiators - the runners-up of the inaugural edition of the PSL, lost to Peshawar Zalmi by 58 runs batting second. Zalmis left-arm spinner Mohammad Asghar took 3 wickets for 16 runs. In the first innings, 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

The team name and the official logo were revealed on 6 January 2016 in Quetta during a ceremony held by team owner Nadeem Omar. The logo depicts a variant of the ancient Roman 'Galea' helmet, worn by gladiators during their fights. The helmet is flanked by two bats that are poised as gladiatorial swords. The team's primary kit colours are Purple and Golden. The kit was revealed on 7 January 2016 in a launch ceremony held in Quetta.

Singer Faakhir Mehmood is the brand ambassador of team. He joined Faheem Allan Fakir to sing the theme song of the team; "Chaa Jaye Quetta".

In early 2017, Quetta chose pop singer Annie Khalid as their team ambassador. Other notables joining Quetta in ambassadorial roles are Chaman-based footballer Kaleemullah and Quetta-based MMA fighter Ahmed Mujtaba.

For the season 2016, Edenrobe and ACM Gold were the team's title sponsor and official partners respectively. For second season, Jubilee Insurance became Quetta's main title sponsor.Master Oil is Quetta's Associate sponsor and Chocka and KHL are team's official partners.PTV Sports and Suno FM 89.4 are official media partners.Tapmad is team's official streaming partner.

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