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Cricket: A brilliant journey for Pakistan Super League (PSL), says Karachi Kings owner
Gulf News
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2/18/2025
Karachi Kings owner Salman Iqbal recounts the league’s journey over six years
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#Cricket #PakistanSuperLeague #Pakistan
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00:00
I think we have worked very hard to bring PSL where it is right now.
00:05
With me today we have got a very special guest, Mr. Salman Iqbal. He is the founder of Karachi
00:11
Kings, the current champions and he's also a TV mogul in Pakistan. He's the founder and CEO of
00:17
ARY Digital Network. From that tentative start of the first edition in the UAE in 2015,
00:25
the journey of PSL, if you can describe in a few words because you are a digital part of it.
00:31
PSL has been a very very interesting journey for all the franchise owners, especially the first
00:37
four franchise owners who started this league back six years ago. It was very difficult to
00:42
bring in PSL in Pakistan because people said that because of PSL not happening in Pakistan,
00:47
it's no use to have PSL. We with the previous chairman of PCB, Najab Sethi, we worked really
00:53
hard to bring in PSL into Pakistan. Now we have the tournaments happening all over Pakistan which
00:58
is a very very big achievement. Once Pakistan Super League got underway and over the years,
01:03
you did a gradual shift. Initially, you took the final there, I think the three matches there,
01:09
then you increased the number of matches. Then last year we had the whole edition,
01:13
this year also the same thing. How much of this has really helped Pakistan ending the
01:19
cricketing isolation? The overseas teams are back there today, South Africa is back,
01:24
Sri Lanka is back. Then PSL must have also played a big part. PSL, I think played a huge role in
01:30
bringing international cricket back to Pakistan. Security protocols which we have for PSL are the
01:34
same protocol that we have for other international matches. When first time we moved PSL to Pakistan,
01:39
which is to Lahore, we had two semi-finals and one final in Lahore. We literally could not find
01:44
international players who were willing to come to Pakistan, especially to Lahore. At that time,
01:48
I remember we had Sangakkara as the captain of Karachi Kings. We had to opt him out for that
01:53
match against Peshawar Zalmi in Lahore. We had to go with a new captain. Sangakkara was hit in
01:59
that bus which happened in Pakistan-Lahore. He was quite sceptic of Pakistan. But then the second
02:04
PSL happened, we had few matches more in Karachi and in Lahore. Everybody was there. Every top
02:10
international players were there. When they went back home to their respective countries and
02:14
respective boards, they told about the security, they said what happened to them and then
02:18
opened floodgates for Pakistan cricket back in Pakistan. Just looking at this year's edition
02:23
in particular, how difficult was the protocol to convince the establishment that yes, we can do it?
02:29
The big decision was last year when we had the semi-finals and finals which were not being
02:34
played. That was the biggest judgment that we had to make as the PSL franchises and as PSL and as
02:39
SPCB. When that went so smooth and then we saw that other countries are doing non-stadium,
02:48
non-crowd in stadium matches, we discussed it with the current government, we had discussed
02:53
with the security. The thing is in Pakistan is we have pandemic and then we have a security thing
02:57
that we have to take care of. If you invite a thousand people or you invite 10,000 people,
03:01
the security has to be the same. But for the last 3-4 matches which I have seen in the stadium,
03:05
it's just unbelievable. We have amazing SOPs, people are scattered around, they are not allowed
03:11
to gather in one place. The movement inside the stadium and outside the stadium has become so
03:15
smooth. So, I think now we are there. It's a sad part that PSL has moved to Pakistan but it's now
03:20
happening with 20% of the crowd. You've got PSL, you've got IPL, you've got Big Bash. I would say
03:27
that you know these are the big three kind of you know in terms of the franchising leagues.
03:32
Where would you keep PSL? Where do you see the room of improvement you know where you can
03:37
you know maybe with a number of teams because everything else has kind of fallen into place
03:42
and it has a settled look now. I think we have worked very hard to bring PSL where it is right
03:46
now and we believe it's the second largest league in the world because if you look Big Bash is not
03:51
owned by owners, it's owned by the board. So, the same formula which we have is IPL and PSL. Of
03:55
course, IPL is the biggest. There's no doubt about it in anybody's mind. PSL I think is the second
04:00
largest league being watched around the world. We have worked really hard to be where we are. Now,
04:06
we get big international players coming to Pakistan. We have names of Chris Gayle and
04:10
everybody. First time after a long time we had the Awanis coming to Pakistan. Kaachi King has
04:14
Noor Muhammad. We have Muhammad Nabi. Rashid Khan is with Lahore Calendars. We had Ian Morgan who
04:20
came to Pakistan once. I think we are there but now what we have to work hard is to get the revenue
04:27
stream of PSL to the level that we were thinking it to be. I think if there was no pandemic we
04:33
would have broken even and come to a great financial position but now after the pandemic
04:38
it's completely a different game now. Plus, Gautam, it's such an exciting thing to play in your
04:43
hometown. We used to hear from people, players who used to come from IPL and they used to say that
04:48
you know I played for Mumbai, I played for Chennai. Oh my god, the crowd was so amazing. We couldn't
04:53
feel that crowd in Sharjah in Dubai. We didn't have packed stadiums. The first match I played
04:57
against Quetta for the first time in National Stadium with 35,000 noisy crowd, I then actually
05:04
felt that yes PSL is now where it is. Initially when we bought the team, nobody thought that PSL
05:10
will do well. We had so many negative press on PSL that we as franchise owners actually disheartened
05:17
might not be able to bring it where it was but suddenly the first year when PSL happened it has
05:21
become so big now that every big businessman wants to own a team.
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