Peshawar Zalmi talisman Kamran Akmal expects Sunday's Pakistan Super League 2018 final between his side and Islamabad United at National Stadium Karachi to be an evenly contested affair and go down to the wire.

"The Islamabad team is very tough and I have a feeling that a winner won't emerge until the very end," Akmal told DawnNewsTV. "I'm hopeful that the match will be great and tough and whoever will have better control on their nerves will win.

Akmal also commented on his team's road to the final and although he has by far been Zalmi's standout performer, he believes it has been a team effort.

"It is a complete team effort that we're in the final," said the veteran wicketkeeper-batsman. "At one point it had seemed that we wouldn't even make it out of the league stage but we did and there is no better feeling.

"We bowled very well too. It wasn't easy to restrict the likes of Lahore and Karachi to modest totals was a brilliant effort and the credit goes to our bowlers.

"It wasn't easy to play in the conditions in Lahore but credit to our players and also credit to the ground staff that worked very hard to make the match happen and didn't disappoint the public."

Akmal attributed his team's difficult start to PSL 2018 to injuries, saying: "There were a lot of injuries. Our captain was injured, I was too then Hasan Ali didn't play the first few matches either. Our combination wasn't set and then the matches were a bit difficult as well."