A league with no home ground
The Pakistan Cricket Board had wanted a franchise Twenty20 league for most of a decade, and had been unable to stage one for the plainest of reasons: no touring side would play in Pakistan. International cricket had left the country after the attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore in 2009, and it had not come back. A league needs overseas players, overseas players need insurance, and insurers do not write policies for Karachi. So the first Pakistan Super League was played 1,500 miles away.
Even the choice of exile took two attempts. The original plan was for one stadium in Doha. In September 2015 the board moved the tournament to Dubai and Sharjah, grounds Pakistan had been using as a substitute home for six years and where the expatriate Pakistani population would fill seats. Five franchises were sold: Islamabad United, Karachi Kings, Lahore Qalandars, Peshawar Zalmi and Quetta Gladiators. Twenty-four matches were scheduled across twenty days in February 2016.
Three matches in five days
The group stage belonged to Peshawar Zalmi and Quetta Gladiators, who each won six of eight. Islamabad United won four and lost four and finished third, which under the Page playoff meant a route to the title through three knockout matches rather than two. They took it.
The Qualifier was the match of the tournament. Quetta batted first, were bowled out for 133 with three balls unused, and then defended it: Peshawar finished on 132 for 9, one run short, Mohammad Nawaz taking the man of the match award. That put Quetta into the final and left Peshawar in Eliminator 2.
Islamabad, meanwhile, had dismantled Karachi Kings in Eliminator 1. Mohammad Sami took 5 for 8, Karachi were out for 111, and the chase took 14.2 overs. In Eliminator 2, Sharjeel Khan hit 117 from 62 balls, the first century the competition had seen, and Peshawar were beaten by 50 runs.
Dubai, 23 February
Quetta made 174 for 7 in the final, Ahmed Shehzad top-scoring with 64 from 38. Dwayne Smith answered with 73 from 51 and Islamabad got home with eight balls in hand, six wickets standing. It was a fourth win in nine days for a side that had spent the group stage in the middle of the table.
Ravi Bopara of Karachi Kings was named player of the tournament: 329 runs and 11 wickets, including a spell of 6 for 16 against Lahore Qalandars that remained one of the best returns in the competition's early years. Umar Akmal made the most runs, 335 for a Lahore Qalandars side that won two of eight. Andre Russell took 16 wickets for the champions.
Reported attendance was a little over 200,000, and the board claimed roughly half of Pakistan's television audience watched at peak times. The competition worked. The question the whole exercise had been designed to answer, whether cricket could be played at home, would take the next four seasons.