Peshawar Zalmi Cricket Team Guide
Peshawar Zalmi is one of the founding members of the Pakistan Super League, representing the city of Peshawar located to the north west of Pakistan and neighbouring its capital.
Peshawar Zalmi Cricket Team Background
Founded back in 2015 alongside the other 4 founding members of the PSL, Peshawar Zalmi were bought for $16 million. The team have built a reputation of bringing youth talent through the ranks, with Zami literally translating to ‘youth’. The logo of the team adopts the traditional Peshawari turban alongside some cricket stumps, with the team playing in an iconic black and yellow jersey.
Where Does Peshawar Zalmi Play?
The home ground of Peshawar Zalmi is the Arbab Niaz Stadium, with this having a capacity of 35,000 spectators. Being founded back in 1984, the stadium has hosted a wide variety of international cricket matches, also being one of the grounds selected for the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Peshawar Zalmi Players
Being renowned for bringing through youth products, Peshawar Zalmi have had a plethora of talented national players take to the field for them, some of them who have even gone on to represent the Pakistan national cricket team. Some of the most notable performers for the Peshawar side include Kamran Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Wahab Riaz and Hasan Ali.
West Indies cricket team allrounder Daren Sammy, Bangladesh national cricket team opening batter Tamim Iqbal, England’s Dawid Malan and Australia’s Ben Cutting are some other notable overseas players who have also played for Peshawar Zalmi.
Memorable Games For The Peshawar Zalmi Cricket Team
In the 2017 edition of the PSL, Peshawar Zalmi finished top of the league standings, winning 4 of their 8 games. From here, they went on to play a qualifier match against the Quetta Gladiators.
Fielding first, the Peshawar side put up some strong overs, with Wahab Riaz taking 3 wickets alone. Despite this, the Gladiators still finished their innings at the crease with a score of 200 runs. Although this seemed like an unfeasible target, Zalmi responded strongly, with a number of batters putting in impressive overs, most notably Mohammad Hafeez who scored 77 runs. However, as they edged closer to target, the Quetta side began to bowl more economically, limiting the possibility for big hits, causing the Peshawar side to narrowly lose by 1 run.
Being knocked down to the eliminator round, Peshawar Zalmi would go on to play against the Karachi Kings. Peshawar batted first, managing to score 181 runs from their 20 overs, only conceding 3 wickets. Kamran Akmal managed to score a century which contributed to this high target. The Karachi side struggled to match Akmai’s batting form, with them falling short by 24 runs in the end, Whab Riaz taking 3 of the 7 runs.
The final would see a rematch of the qualifier game, with Peshawar Zalmi hoping to take revenge against the Gladiators. Zalmi would once again bat first, only managing 148 runs from theri 20 overs, with Kamram Akmai not being able to replicate his batting from the eliminator game. However, due to the Quetta batters not being able to get into any sort of swing, they only managed to score 90 runs before conceding a 58 run loss in the 16th over. This was historic for Peshawar as this would be their first PSL championship.
Rivals Of The Peshawar Zalmi Cricket Team
The main rivals of Peshawar Zalmi are the Karachi Kings, however, there is also a regional rivalry between the side and Islamabad United due to Pesahwar being located to the west of the capital based side.
