Islamabad United
Islamabad United cricket team: competitions
Islamabad United: Twenty20 Cricket Competitions
Logo Tournament Wins Years
Pakistan Super League
2
2016, 2018
Islamabad United cricket team: Current Squad
Islamabad United: Pakistan Cricket Team review
Even though the Pakistan Cricket Super League was created only recently, the teams participating in it already show an excellent professional game, bringing great pleasure to their fans. One of the most notable teams in this tournament is Islamabad United, also known by the nicknames United, ISLU and Sherus. The club represents Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in domestic tournaments. The owner of the franchise is Leonine Global Investments.
The team is based at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. The venue has recently been expanded, thanks to which it can now accommodate more spectators. Now its maximum capacity is 15,000 people. In parallel with Islamabad United, the Northern cricket team trains at this stadium.
The review will be incomplete if we do not touch on the corporate identity of Islamabad United. The team has a very bright logo with the image of a lion’s head with a fiery burning mane. As the team notes, such a symbol allows you to accurately display the team’s fighting spirit, their desire to play persistently and with the lion’s pride. And the fiery mane is an additional design element that symbolizes the released energy.
The team’s corporate colors are no less bright and energetic than the coat of arms. They are shades of red, orange and yellow. This color scheme emphasizes not only the colors that lions are associated with, but also gives players confidence when playing cricket, fuels the desire to play with fire in their eyes.
In addition, Islamabad United has a wonderful official website. It is easy and fast to learn literally everything about the club: the latest news, the current composition of the team, the history of its creation, and so on. Also, using the site, you can join the team’s fan club, buy branded products, watch videos from players’ performances, and find out the schedule and results of matches.
Instagram (more than 470 thousand subscribers), Twitter (more than 950 thousand subscribers), and Facebook (more than 3.4 million subscribers) are the main pages of Islamabad United in addition to the official website. There, the team not only announces upcoming performances and talks about the results of the past ones, but also gives exclusive comments. The guys also post photos and videos from training sessions and performances. Well, they congratulate each other on their birthday.
Islamabad United: history and main events
As you know, in 2015, the Pakistan Cricket Board decided that the first season of the Pakistan Super League should be held in February 2016. This was the reason for the creation of five teams based on urban franchises. As a result, the Islamabad franchise was sold to Leonine Global Sports for $ 15 million US, and the Islamabad United team was later formed.
In 2016, the guys started in the new league and took third place in the group stage of the round-robin system, thanks to which they managed to get into the playoffs. In the next stage, the “lions” beat Peshawar Zalmi, thus obtaining a ticket to the final. In addition to them, the guys from Quetta Gladiators reached this point, but they were defeated. Islamabad United became the first champions in the history of the Pakistan Super League.
At the 2017 Pakistan Super League player draft, the Lions retained 17 players from the previous squad. Three new players were selected for the full composition – Ben Duckett, Zohaib Khan and Shadab Khan. The team fought with Peshawar Zalmi and defeated them in the updated composition, continuing the winning streak. However, after moving the tournament to Sharjah, Islamabad United broke the winning streak and suffered defeats from Quetta Gladiators and Karachi Kings. Upon returning to Dubai, the defeats of the “lions” stopped, and the guys won a confident victory over the “gladiators”, reaching the playoffs. But it did not work out to reach the final: they were knocked out of the race for the championship by the Karachi Kings.
The 2018 season also started poorly for Islamabad United: they started it with a defeat to Peshawar Zalmi, and then, after moving the league stage to Sharjah, they continued to lose, this time to Quetta Gladiators. But in the next game, the team cheered up and beautifully defeated Lahore Qalandars. As a result, the “lions” managed to make it to the final, where they won the match against Peshawar Zalmi, becoming champions for the second time.
The 2019 and 2020 seasons were not busy for Islamabad United, but one significant event still took place: a player of the team Shadab Khan (born in 1998), was confirmed as the team captain in 2020, thanks to which he became the youngest captain in the history of the PSL.
Islamabad United: current team composition and achievements
Islamabad United is a very young team, and its composition will obviously change over time until it reaches the right balance. You can quickly find out about all changes and transfers in the team from the club’s pages in social networks, as well as on the official website of Islamabad United. And in 2021, at the time of writing the review, the current squad is as follows:
- Batsmen: Paul Stirling, Asif Ali, Colin Munro.
- Bowlers: Muhammad Musa, Zafar Gohar, Reece Topley, Ahmed Safi Abdullah, Akif Javed, Fawad Ahmed, Ali Khan, Zeeshan Zameer.
- All-rounders: Shadab Khan (captain), Faheem Ashraf, Mohammad Wasim.
- Wicket-keepers: Hasan Ali.
The coach of the club is Johan Botha.
Islamabad United is considered one of the strongest teams in the Pakistan Cricket Super League. Since its foundation, the club has managed to win this tournament twice: in 2016, thus becoming the first champions in the Pakistan Super League history and in 2018. Of course, it is unlikely that the team will stop there, so we are waiting for new achievements in the near future.
