The sun has set on Rizwan's reign

Hunain Shah banged one in slightly short, and Yasir Khan nudged it to the off side. There was no attempt to pierce the field, and because of the fielding restrictions, no apparent intention to squeeze any extra runs. This was the eighth ball Yasir had faced, scoring six runs. He was yet to hit a boundary; only three had been struck in the entire innings to this point. It rounded out both the over, and the powerplay, which Rawalpindiz finished with 24 for 3. It was the lowest six-over score in the PSL this year.

It's hard to know exactly how far back in time to travel to pinpoint the moment Rawalpindiz' cause began to look hopeless. Perhaps it was just yesterday, when, after five successive defeats, they somehow managed to turn in their limpest performance yet against fellow new franchise Hyderabad Kingsmen. Or it might have been the auction itself, which saw them net not a single T20 opener packing any sort of modern menace, combining it with the inability to land no more than two recognised fast bowlers - one of whom, Naseem Shah, has spent much of the tournament out with a back injury.

But perhaps Rawalpindiz decline is a deeper, more inextricable rot. For one, whatever branding and marketing trick expedience caused the PSL to pull, this Rawalpindiz side is not a new franchise with teething problems. It is the husk of Multan Sultans rebirthed through a complex arrangement that saw the new owner rename the side, with the current Multan Sultans' team bearing no historical resemblance to the franchise besides a switch in name from Sialkot Stallionz shortly after the auction.

That Sultans side Rawalpindiz was midwifed out of was a shambles by the end, in itself a remarkable turnaround from their heyday in the very recent past. They made four successive PSL finals until 2024 before running spectacularly out of steam last year, losing nine of their ten matches. Ali Tareen, the previous owner, said late last year that if he renewed his ownership deal, he intended not to retain a single player from that year and start all over.

"Rizwan was at the helm when the wheels came off Sultans' golden age in 2025, presiding over the joint-worst season for any PSL side. In a wretched run stretching back to the 2024 final, he has now captained his PSL franchise to 16 defeats in 17 games"

Under new ownership, Rawalpindiz retained four players, the maximum allowed number: Zaman Khan, Yasir Khan, Sam Billings, and captain Mohammad Rizwan. Shortly after, Zaman Khan was ruled out of the tournament with a shoulder dislocation, making their pace bowling shortage even more acute. Yasir did score 83 in an encouraging, albeit unsuccessful, opening game, but has, in lockstep with the overall franchise, regressed sharply since, with 61 in the following five matches. Billings has proved a somewhat brighter spark, scoring a pair of half-centuries and beefing up the lower middle order, but even so, the contributions have been too modest to pick up the hefty slack his team-mates have left him.

But perhaps the tone of the franchise was set when Rawalpindiz decided to hold on to Rizwan as the centrepiece of a project that was showing clear signs of rust. The temptation is understandable; Rizwan is the greatest ever Sultan, leading them to four finals and the 2021 title. In 58 innings for them, he scored a half-century or century in more than one in three games, finished without being dismissed in more than one in six, and averaged just a shade under 50.

However, there was a happy marriage between Rizwan's strengths and what T20 cricket required in the early 2020s, one whose differences are now irreconcilable. The slightest whiff of extra caution, especially up top, is likelier to be punished heavily, and even the consistency that made Rizwan such a lock has deserted him dramatically.

He is one of just two players to have batted six times this season without scoring 100 runs, and has the second-lowest average amongst that group. (In perhaps a depressing indication of how far Pakistan must still travel to modernise their T20 mindset, the only man doing worse on both counts is current Pakistan T20 captain Salman Agha). His powerplay strike rate since the 2025 season is the fifth lowest in the league, while only two batters (minimum five innings and 60 balls faced) have a lower strike rate this year than his 118.07.

It has not helped that his opening partners have been Yasir and Usman Khawaja, one relatively inexperienced and out of form, the other, never really a T20 specialist, sundowning towards the tail of his career. Since the second game onwards, the Rawalpindiz openers have played a combined ten innings, with only three of them encroaching into double figures, none with a higher score than 21.

There are, as ever, multiple factors at play, and Rawalpindiz have not exactly had fortune smile down upon them. They were unlucky with the injuries to Zaman Khan and Naseem in the department they were already suffering scarcity. They probably picked a side assuming they would play the bulk of their games at home in Rawalpindi, before events overtook them. They could not have predicted the sudden drop in form for a whole collection of players, including Yasir, Mohammad Amir, and the most expensive overseas buy Daryl Mitchell. They could not control losing all but two of their tosses at a tournament, and chasing just once in a season where batting second appears to offer a clear advantage.

But Rizwan was at the helm when the wheels came off Sultans' golden age in 2025, presiding over the joint-worst season for any PSL side. In a wretched run stretching back to the 2024 final, he has now captained his PSL franchise to 16 defeats in 17 games, the worst such streak for any PSL captain. With six defeats in six, it is not out of the question that one of the PSL's most decorated captains could end up with a winless season on his resume. The signs the sun had begun to set on Rizwan and the team he led to so much success were clear enough in 2025. Rawalpindiz' refusal to merely look up does not change that.

In one of his more famous quotes, Rizwan once said that he never really viewed a defeat as such. "You either win or you learn." With none of the former to be had, perhaps the only real lesson to be learnt is the knowledge, both for Rawalpindiz and its iconic leader, that time is finally up.

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