Gaddafi Stadium witnessed an unbelievable moment last Sunday night, when a local boy who once collected balls outside the boundary 20 years ago lifted the Pakistan Super League (PSL) trophy in the same stadium.

To witness this historic moment, the largest crowd in Pakistan’s cricket history was recorded, as 32,461 fans joined the celebration in which Babar Azam, the captain of Peshawar Zalmi, was crowned for the first time in his PSL captaincy tenure.

A sea of yellow was seen in the stands to support Peshawar Zalmi but, deep down, everyone knew that this crowd had turned up in strong support for primarily one player. And that player was Babar Azam.

This season has been an absolute dream for Peshawar Zalmi, where they faced only one defeat — that too in their last group stage game, which was a dead rubber for them. Other than that, everything Zalmi did worked in its favour. The awards ceremony after the final was evidence of it, with five of the seven individual awards going to its players.

After over five weeks of interesting clashes and fine performances from so many players, the Pakistan Super League 11 has concluded with Peshawar Zalmi and Babar Azam lifting the crown. Here’s looking back at some of the biggest takeaways from the tournament…

It was not a season where only one or two performances or a couple of players took Peshawar Zalmi to the next stage. All of their key players performed. Despite a couple of their key pacers from Bangladesh returning to their country for national duty halfway through the tournament, this didn’t hurt Zalmi, as their young bowlers Ali Raza and Mohammad Basit didn’t let Zalmi feel that absence.

Babar Azam, who has always been under criticism for his captaincy, turned the tables in this PSL season. Coming from a forgettable World Cup campaign, it was a big burden on Babar’s shoulders, not just to lead the team but also to score runs himself at a strike rate expected of T20 batters.

Fulfilling all expectations, the season came as record-breaking for Babar Azam, piling up two big hundreds to his T20 record and scoring 588 runs to join Fakhar Zaman for the most runs in a single PSL edition. He also struck those runs at a strike rate of 145.9 and ended with an average of 73.50.

An amazing moment in PSL 11 came when, in the first game where fans were allowed into the stadium, Babar welcomed his supporters with a daddy hundred in the qualifier in Karachi against three-time champions Islamabad United.

However, leading Zalmi to the most wins in PSL history and their second title, Babar was not the only performer. In batting, he was joined by Sri Lankan star Kusal Mendis, who was just 38 runs behind Babar’s tally, with 550 runs and with a higher strike rate of 168. Mendis also had one hundred and four fifties to his name.

Following Babar and Mendis’ starts, Abdul Samad and Aaron Hardie injected those much-needed finishes in the season. In the big final against Hyderabad Kingsmen, where Zalmi lost their reliable pair of Babar and Mendis early, Samad and Hardie took responsibility and, from 40 for 4, took the team home.

Despite this year not being a bowlers’ season, another Zalmi star, Sufyan Muqeem, went against all odds and became the first-ever specialist spinner in PSL history to clinch the ‘Player of the Tournament’ award.

With 22 wickets in his pocket, Muqeem had been the leader of the pack throughout the season. A big difference between the two teams in the final was Muqeem’s spell, where he took a solitary wicket but conceded only 23 runs, with an economy of 5.75.

Runners-up Hyderabad Kingsmen must be disappointed for losing the final in the way they did, but their roller-coaster journey in their debut season has been another top story. After losing four consecutive games at the beginning of the season, Kingsmen were out of the tournament in experts’ eyes, though not mathematically. Then this team, led by an Australian who is himself not an experienced T20 player — Marnus Labuschagne, captaining a team outside of his own country for the first time — turned the tables and won the next four games on the trot.

Their qualification in the eliminator felt like a big achievement, but Kingsmen had bigger dreams, and they beat the seasoned performers, Islamabad United, in Eliminator 2 in a nail-biting finish. In a game that saw many ups and downs, United needed 28 off the last two overs, and Hyderabad’s Mohammad Ali conceded 22 in just one over. It felt like the Kingsmen were finally undone.

But then another PSL hero rose to the big occasion. Hunain Shah, younger brother of pacer Naseem Shah, did something that was not even in the imagination of the Kingsmen captain, who later in the post-match talk got emotional, and his tears were an acknowledgment of the unbelievable performance by Hunain, who made the impossible possible. The young pace bowler defended just 6 runs in the final over, conceding only 3 runs.

Hyderabad Kingsmen, who invested in the youngsters of Pakistan in the PSL auction and signed the most expensive local player of PSL, Saim Ayub, for 12.6 crores and emerging batter Maaz Sadaqat for 3.5 crores, would not regret it as, on different occasions, their stars also rose up when it counted.

After disappointing performances in the first seven matches, Kingsmen’s Usman Khan had told his captain he could be dropped since was not performing. But Labuschagne backed him and told him that he had belief in his teammates. Usman then delivered back-to-back match-winning knocks, including a blistering century when Hyderabad had to chase a big total against Multan Sultans in a must-win game. He also claimed the record of the most PSL hundreds, later joined by Babar Azam, both now having scored four centuries.

Moreover, with two more teams in PSL, it has become an even more interesting tournament for fans, where they now have three official rivalries to look forward to. One of the most famous rivalries remains, of course, between the Lahore Qalandars and the Karachi Kings, nicknamed the ‘PSL Classico.’ Now Rawalpindi vs Islamabad United has been announced and named the ‘Twin City Derby.’ This derby winner will retain the Golden Bail that belongs to the Rawalpindi Stadium. The third rivalry, between Karachi Kings and Hyderabad Kingsmen, has been named as the ‘Sindh Derby’, and also has an award to retain, the Sindh Taj.

In conclusion, it has been one of the greatest PSL seasons in recent years, despite fans only being able to watch the play-offs and final in the stadiums due to the ongoing security and economic crises as a result of the war in the Middle East.

Fans will now be hoping for similar levels of performance and consistency from the Pakistan national team, while a major debate has again emerged around Babar Azam. Once derided as ‘just not a T20 player’, people are once again wondering if, moving forward from his reinvention, he should open in T20s for Pakistan as well.

The writer is a cricket correspondent and digital content creator. X: @abubakartarar

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 10th, 2026