In franchise cricket, a team anthem is more than a song. It defines the franchise’s identity and its vision for its fans, reflecting the importance placed on the connection between sport and culture. Some PSL teams understood this from the outset, while others are still learning. At least one has yet to make an attempt.
What follows is a team-by-team assessment, not just of the music, but of the entire brand-building project each franchise has pursued since 2016. The anthems are the evidence. The identity is the verdict.
1. Lahore Qalandars — The Accidental Geniuses
Brand Rating: A | Anthem Legacy: A+
Despite finishing last five times in their first six seasons, Lahore Qalandars may be the league’s most beloved franchise. Their consistent losses did not prevent them from building a fan following that other, more successful teams could only envy.
The brand foundation was clear: Dama Dam Mast Qalandar, a widely recognised Sufi chant in the subcontinent, embedded in the name. The ‘Qalandar’ identity, mystical, free-spirited, unbound by convention, was a conceptual gift that kept giving. This especially mattered during years when nothing on the pitch worked. When you lose by ten wickets, it helps if your brand identity is: ‘we answer to no earthly authority.’
The 2016 anthem “Dama Dam Mast” by Asrar was an immediate hit, rootsy, energetic, and genuinely in love with Lahore’s street culture. Shafqat Amanat Ali’s 2017 version elevated it further. These were not just songs; they were declarations of Lahori cultural pride that preceded the team’s actual achievements by several years.
Then came “Bol Qalandar” in 2021, a production that, by any objective measure, should not have worked. The players danced in front of a green screen, as if they had been gently drugged. The choreography looked like a WhatsApp forward. Abrar ul Haq brought his signature folk-pop energy to a cricket team’s music video. It was gloriously, joyously unhinged, and fans adored it precisely because it was so unapologetically itself. No pretension, no corporate polish. Just Lahori chaos in musical form.
“Pappu Yaar” took this genius-by-accident further. The Qalandars dressed their entire squad, including international players, in vaguely rap-rock costumes and had them perform to Junoon’s iconic song. The international players dancing in this context created one of the funniest and most genuine moments in PSL brand history. It worked because there was zero self-consciousness.
The Qalandars’ Player Development Program is the off-field brand story most franchises have ignored. It features nationwide trials and transparent grassroots talent identification. This gave Lahore an identity beyond the league season. When the PCB chairman renewed their franchise for another decade, he said the owners’ work had made the franchise ‘a household name across Pakistan and a reputable brand around the world.’ That is not hyperbole. It shows what eleven years of consistent brand work can achieve.
The only real criticism of the Qalandars’ anthem strategy is that it sometimes leans too much on organised chaos. As they became champions, three PSL titles in four seasons, the anthems have lost the effortless magic of the underdog years. ‘Qalandar Hum’ and its 2.0 remix were competent. ‘Hum Hein Lahore Qalandar’ was polished. Neither matched the electric strangeness of ‘Bol Qalandar.’ Champions require different stories than underdogs. Lahore has yet to find that new voice.
Bottom line: Lahore Qalandars represent the PSL’s strongest brand-building story. They earned fan loyalty before winning trophies, and their anthems remain the league’s most entertaining.
2. Peshawar Zalmi: The Most Purposeful Brand in the League
Brand Rating: A | Anthem Legacy: A
If Lahore built its brand accidentally, Peshawar Zalmi built theirs with intention. From the moment owner Javed Afridi unveiled the team’s identity at Army Public School Peshawar, a loaded, deeply significant choice of venue, deliberately evoking the 2014 APS massacre and the resilience of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it was clear that this franchise understood something the others didn’t: a PSL team can mean something.
‘Zalmi’ means youth in Pashto. It is not a neutral name; it states who this team represents and why. The Yellow Storm identity is vivid, distinctive, and instantly recognisable. It gives Zalmi a visual language that travels beyond Peshawar. In a sport that often reduces cities to colours and logos, Zalmi’s brand has always felt genuinely local.
Zalmi’s approach to anthems has been among the most sophisticated in the league. Unlike other franchises that relied on established artists, Zalmi consistently featured younger, lesser-known talent and experimented with Pashto and English. They prioritized music authentic to KPK’s identity, signaling a genuine commitment to regional representation in a league often seen as Punjab-centric.
Hadiqa Kiani’s ‘Zalmi Tarana’ remains one of the most polished and emotionally resonant team anthems in PSL history. It had the production quality of a single and cultural grounding that felt authentic, not assembled by committee. Gul Panra’s ‘Zalmi Da Pekhawar’ leaned into Pashto folk traditions with real authenticity. These songs weren’t made out of obligation; they were crafted by people who knew what they wanted to build.
Zalmi’s off-field brand story matters. The “Dil Se Ba-Ikhtiar” initiative, PSL 10 kits crafted by women artisans from Haripur, is a brand decision most marketing departments would not consider. It connects the team’s products to a social purpose rooted in the community they represent. That is deep brand building: making merchandise mean something.
Zalmi was confirmed as the most-watched team during PSL 10. That figure reflects a decade of deliberate brand investment. They paid Rs. 490 million annually to renew their franchise. This is well below what Lahore and Karachi paid. Yet Zalmi has built a brand that arguably exceeds its commercial valuation in terms of cultural impact.
Bottom line: Peshawar Zalmi is the PSL’s most underrated brand story. They built a franchise that resonates with an underrepresented community, maintained the league’s most consistent anthem catalogue, and achieved this without major media or political backing.
3. Islamabad United: Smartest on the Field, Blandest in the Stands
Brand Rating: B- | Anthem Legacy: C+
Islamabad United is the PSL’s most successful franchise by titles. They have three championships, the most in league history. They are analytically run and strategically sound. They have produced some of the most intelligent cricket the PSL has seen. Their brand tagline, #DimaagSe (With Intelligence), is among the most consistently applied identity concepts of PSL franchises.
Despite their success, Islamabad United has not inspired passionate fan loyalty?
The issue is clear: Islamabad United built a brand focused on intellect rather than emotion. #DimaagSe is effective for management but lacks the emotional appeal needed to rally fans. The result is respect rather than enthusiasm.
The anthem’s history reflects this tension. “Cricket Jorray Pakistan” by Momina Mustehsan was pleasant, professional, and instantly forgettable, functional background music rather than something that became embedded in the culture. “Rang Jeet Ka Laal Hai” by Soch The Band was genuinely the best anthem United produced, urgent, melodic, and emotionally alive. It was the one moment where the franchise found music that matched the intensity of its on-field ambitions. Critics singled it out as among the PSL’s better team anthems. But United could not sustain that quality, and subsequent efforts returned to the template of polished competence.
Islamabad United also faces a geographic challenge. As the capital, Islamabad lacks the concentrated cricket culture found in Karachi, Lahore, or Peshawar. The team’s nationwide fan base is broad but lacks deep emotional ties. After eleven years, Islamabad United is recognized for strong management but an underdeveloped cultural identity.
The franchise has done genuinely interesting things with its ownership model; the Naqvi siblings’ Leonine Global Sports approach has been focused and disciplined, but those stories live in cricket media, not in the public imagination. United’s brand ambassadors have included Fawad Khan and Ali Zafar at various points, stars with genuine star power. The activation of those relationships, however, has rarely risen above the level of a photocall.
Bottom line: Islamabad United excels on the field but has yet to achieve the same success in building emotional connections with fans. For a franchise focused on intelligence, this remains a notable gap.
4. Quetta Gladiators: Great Concept, Inconsistent Execution
Brand Rating: C+ | Anthem Legacy: C+
The Quetta Gladiators started with perhaps the most conceptually interesting brand proposition in the PSL. The Roman gladiator identity, purple and gold colours, the Galea helmet flanked by cricket bats as swords, and the battle cry “Kai Kai Quetta,” drawn from the Baloch Regiment’s World War II war cry, were genuinely distinctive and culturally rooted. This was not a team assembled by a marketing firm from a mood board. The logo felt earned.
The early anthems leaned into this identity with reasonable success. Faakhir Mehmood’s “Chaa Jaye Quetta” and its 2017 follow-up “Chah Gaya Quetta” were simple, crowd-friendly, and recognisable. They did not threaten any musical boundaries, but they were stadium songs, designed to be sung along to, and that is what they achieved.
Then came DJ Bravo. “We The Gladiators” was the moment Quetta accidentally produced something genuinely interesting, and it is instructive to understand why it worked. Dwayne Bravo was already one of cricket’s celebrity-crossover success stories, a cricketer who had become a legitimate musical act with actual chart presence in the Caribbean. When Bravo put his stamp on a Quetta anthem, it did not feel like a cricket franchise making a music video. It felt like a musician who happened to be playing for them that season. The song basked, as one critic noted, in the afterglow of Bravo’s own hits, and the result was the most genuinely cool thing the Gladiators have ever put out.
The problem is that Quetta has never been able to replicate or build on that moment. Their subsequent anthems have been largely forgettable. The “Sultan Aa Gaya” era collaboration with Quratulain Baloch and Soch The Band showed flashes of something more interesting. Saintly Multan-meets-gladiatorial imagery is a conceptually strange combination, but it was at least attempting something. Then the Gladiators went through a catastrophic on-field collapse: four consecutive seasons without reaching the playoffs between 2020 and 2023. When a team loses its competitive identity, the brand follows.
The deeper issue for Quetta is that Balochistan, one of Pakistan’s most culturally rich and historically underrepresented provinces, offers an extraordinary brand canvas that the Gladiators have consistently underutilised. Baloch music, Baloch cultural imagery, and Baloch stories of resilience are all available and powerful. The franchise has not meaningfully drawn on any of them since the initial logo and colour scheme. For a team representing a province with so much to say, the Gladiators have been oddly quiet.
On the commercial side, Quetta renewed at Rs. 340 million annually, the lowest valuation among the original franchises. That gap from Lahore’s Rs. 670 million reflects a decade of brand underperformance as much as it reflects on-field results.
Bottom line: Quetta Gladiators had a great brief and a great logo. They produced one genuinely iconic anthem moment (DJ Bravo) and otherwise left most of their brand potential sitting untapped. Balochistan deserves a franchise that fights as hard for its cultural representation as it fights for wickets.
5. Multan Sultans — The Late Bloomer With a Dynasty Complex
Brand Rating: B | Anthem Legacy: B
Multan Sultans made their PSL 3 (2018) debut as the league’s newest and most expensive franchise, purchased by Schön Properties for $41.6 million, surpassing Karachi Kings as the priciest buy in PSL history. The ownership situation became chaotic almost immediately, with the PCB terminating Schön’s agreement in November 2018 and new owners taking over. It was not the most auspicious beginning for a brand.
The early anthems reflected this instability. “Hum Hain Multan Kay Sultans” was functional but unremarkable. Ataullah Essakhelvi featured at one point, a strange choice that suggested the franchise was still figuring out who it was talking to. The royal, saintly identity of Multan, city of shrines, city of saints, Sufi heartland, was present in the iconography but not yet properly expressed in the music.
The breakthrough came with “Tak Meday Sohna, Sultan Aa Gayya” (PSL 6, 2021), featuring Quratulain Baloch and Soch The Band, composed by Xulfi. This was the best anthem the Sultans have produced: it honoured Multan’s saintly culture, sounded like something from the region rather than borrowed from elsewhere, and had the production quality to match its ambition. It was the anthem of a franchise that had finally found its voice.
The more recent “Sultanat (Sultans in the House)” with Maanu, Natasha Noorani, and Talal Qureshi showed an appetite for contemporary sounds without abandoning the royal identity. The combination worked. It was energetic, slightly cocky (fitting for a team that had just reached four consecutive finals), and musically more interesting than most of the league’s team output.
The Sultans’ on-field narrative, four consecutive PSL finals, three consecutive runner-up finishes before finally winning in 2021, is the kind of story that builds brand mythology. Being the bridesmaid is not always a bad look in sports; it can create a hunger in fans that sometimes dissipates with winning. But losing three finals in a row with Mohammad Rizwan as captain is the kind of story that eventually needs resolution, and the brand suffered as a result.
Heading into PSL 11, Multan Sultans failed to renew their franchise agreement. The PCB auctioned the franchise,which was purchased by Walee Technologies for PKR 2.45 billion and moved to Rawalpindi as Rawalpindiz. Separately, CD Ventures acquired the Sialkot Stallionz slot,y revived the Multan Sultans identit,y and relocatedit to Multan.This complex situation has significant brand implications, as frequent changes undermine brand stability.d.
Bottom line: Multan Sultans found their authentic brand voice around PSL 6, five years after they needed it. The Sufi-royal identity, when properly executed, is the most distinctive. The instability of ownership has repeatedly undermined what the creative work has built. has built. The franchise identity question heading into the new era remains the most unresolved in the PSL.
6. Karachi Kings: The Biggest City, The Worst Brand
Brand Rating: D+ | Anthem Legacy: D
There is no polite way to write this section, so let’s not try.
Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan. It is the financial capital of the country. It is home to arguably the most passionate, diverse, and cricket-obsessed fan base in the nation. The Karachi Kings were the most expensive franchise at the time of the inaugural PSL auction, with an annual fee of Rs. 640 million under their renewed 2026 agreement, second only to Lahore. They have the budget, the market, the heritage, and the platform. And yet the Karachi Kings have produced eleven years of brand communication that reads like a case study in how not to do it.
The anthem’s history is a litany of missed opportunities. Ali Azmat’s “Dilon Ke Badshah” in 2016 was decent enough, Ali Azmat is Ali Azmat, and rock royalty on a cricket anthem will always produce something listenable. But then came Shehzad Roy and “Dhan Dhana Dhan Hoga Re” in 2017, reprised as “De Dhana Dhan” in 2018 and again in 2019 in slightly modified form. Three consecutive seasons of the same song, slightly remixed, with new cricketers awkwardly inserted into the video. This is not brand building. This is brand maintenance on the absolute minimum budget.
The “Yeh Hai Karachi” era from 2020 onwards at least found a hook worth repeating. Asim Azhar’s version had genuine energy, and “Yeh Hai Karachi” as a title captures something real about the city’s pride and scale. But the problem is the execution surrounding it. The music videos are relentlessly stuffed with ARY television personalities, the media group that owns the Kings, in what amounts to extended promotional content for ARY’s other entertainment properties rather than genuine cricket anthem filmmaking. In a media-saturated city, brand authenticity matters. Fans notice when the anthem video is essentially an ARY talent showcase.
A Dawn commentary from 2018 highlighted the Karachi Kings’ brand issue: while other teams celebrated local culture in their anthems, the Kings’ 2018 track focused on warning rivals and included a reference to sit-in protests if appeals were rejected. This political metaphor was poorly timed in a city affected by real sit-ins, raising questions about the franchise’s sensitivity to local context.
The structural problem is that ARY Media Group has approached the Karachi Kings as an extension of its media empire rather than as a standalone sports brand with its own identity and obligations to its city. The franchise has treated fan engagement as a captive audience for cross-promotion rather than as a relationship requiring genuine investment. The result is a team that, despite representing Pakistan’s largest city, has failed to make the city fully fall in love with it. A Dawn investigation once noted the remarkable fact that significant portions of Karachiites, the team’s own potential base, actively disliked the Kings.
Their one PSL title (2020, won under COVID conditions in a bubble) was genuine and hard-earned, but the brand surrounding it never capitalized on the moment the way a more strategically managed franchise would have. PSL 11 brought a slight creative pivot. “Hai Apni Karni” moved toward street culture and emerging artists, with some fans noting a refreshing shift in energy. Whether this represents genuine strategic change or just a slightly different playlist remains to be seen.
Bottom line: Karachi Kings is the most disappointing brand in PSL history, not because they are actively terrible, but because of the gap between what they could be and what they have chosen to be. A city of twenty million people deserves a franchise that tries harder. Pakistan’s financial capital deserves better than an annual ARY talent showcase disguised as a cricket anthem.
7. Hyderabad Kingsmen & Rawalpindi / Multan Sultans (PSL 11 Newcomers)
Brand Rating: Too Early to Judge | Anthem Legacy: TBD
PSL 11 brings two new franchises into the mix, and the brand questions they face are revealing. Hyderabad Kingsmen, representing a city with deep Sindhi cultural heritage and a rich musical tradition, have the same opportunity Peshawar Zalmi seized in 2016: the chance to build something that actually represents the people it claims to speak for. Sindhi music, Sindhi identity, and Sindhi pride are all enormous brand canvases. Whether the franchise has the imagination to use them will become clear quickly.
The Rawalpindi/Multan Sultans’ identity chaos has already complicated the franchise situation, and establishing brand clarity will be hard amid it. What is clear is that Rawalpindi, a city that has hosted some of the most electric PSL matches, deserves a franchise that builds its own identity rather than inheriting someone else’s confused one.
The Scoreboard: What Eleven Years Tell Us
Ranking the six original franchises by their brand-building efforts over eleven years reveals a clear pattern:
Lahore Qalandars and Peshawar Zalmi sit at the top, for entirely different reasons. Lahore built love through chaos, authenticity, and the Sufi cultural identity baked into their very name. Peshawar built purpose through intentional community connection, regional representation, and consistent musical quality. Both franchises have built something that extends beyond the cricket season and beyond the league table.
Islamabad United sits in a frustrating middle ground, the smartest cricket franchise, with a cultural identity that has never fully ignited. Three titles and a fan base that respects rather than worships them. That is an achievement and a failure simultaneously.
Multan Sultans eventually found their voice, but ownership instability has repeatedly undermined their creative work. Quetta Gladiators started with a great logo and a meaningful war cry, produced one genuinely iconic anthem (thank you, DJ Bravo), and then largely coasted.
Karachi Kings, despite representing the country’s largest city and holding the most commercially valuable position in Pakistani cricket, have treated their fan base as a media audience rather than a community, resulting in limited brand engagement.
The broader lesson is one the PSL as a whole has not yet fully learned: an anthem is not a marketing deliverable. It is a promise. It says: this is who we are, this is where we are from, this is the culture we are proudest of, and this is what we believe cricket means to our city. The franchises that have kept that promise, Lahore and Peshawar, emphatically, have been rewarded with something more durable than trophies: genuine belonging in the hearts of their fans.
Franchises that have not fulfilled this promise continue to seek the connection with fans that should have been established years earlier.
Bol Qalandar. Zalmi Da Pekhawar. These are not just songs. They are the sound of brand promises kept.