How the Pakistan Super League works: teams, format, auction and playoffs

The Pakistan Super League (PSL) is the country's premier Twenty20 competition and a fixture of the spring sporting calendar. Here is how it works.

Origins and ownership

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced the league in September 2015, and the first season began on 4 February 2016 in the United Arab Emirates with five teams. Islamabad United won that inaugural edition.

The PCB runs the league, while each franchise is owned by private investors. Multan Sultans joined in 2018 to make six teams.

For the 2026 season, PSL 11, the league expanded to eight franchises, with Hyderabad Kingsmen among the newcomers. The PSL 11 line-up was:

• Group A: Lahore Qalandars, Karachi Kings, Quetta Gladiators, Hyderabad Kingsmen
• Group B: Islamabad United, Multan Sultans, Peshawar Zalmi, Pindiz

The format

In PSL 11, each team played 10 league matches: home and away against the three other sides in its own group, and once against each of the four teams in the other group.

The top four on the table went through to the playoffs, which follow the familiar Page-style system used in many T20 leagues:

• Qualifier 1: first against second, with the winner going straight to the final.
• Eliminator: third against fourth, with the loser knocked out.
• Qualifier 2: the loser of Qualifier 1 against the winner of the Eliminator.
• Final: the Qualifier 1 winner against the Qualifier 2 winner.

This rewards the top two with a second chance. The 2026 season ran from 26 March, with the final on 3 May at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Matches were spread across Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Multan, Peshawar and, for the first time, Faisalabad.

From draft to auction

For its first ten seasons the PSL built squads through a player draft. In January 2026 the PCB switched to an auction model for PSL 11. The key changes:

• Each franchise could retain a maximum of four players, one per category.
• The old extras of mentors, brand ambassadors and right-to-match cards were abolished.
• Each team was allowed one direct signing of an overseas player who had not featured in the previous season.
• The salary purse rose to USD 1.6 million per franchise.

The champions

• 2016: Islamabad United
• 2017: Peshawar Zalmi
• 2018: Islamabad United
• 2019: Quetta Gladiators
• 2020: Karachi Kings
• 2021: Multan Sultans
• 2022: Lahore Qalandars
• 2023: Lahore Qalandars
• 2024: Islamabad United
• 2025: Lahore Qalandars
• 2026: Peshawar Zalmi

The 2026 final, on 3 May, saw Peshawar Zalmi bowl out debutants Hyderabad Kingsmen for 129 and chase the target with five wickets in hand. It was Zalmi's second title and their first since 2017, watched by a crowd of 32,461, the biggest in PSL history.

Islamabad United and Lahore Qalandars lead the roll of honour with three titles each.