Match overview
Quetta Gladiators beat Multan Sultans by 2 wickets in a tight PSL 2025 match at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on 18 May 2025. Multan Sultans, winning the toss and batting first, posted 185/7. Quetta's chase was never smooth: they finished on 190/8, losing wickets regularly through the middle and death overs but scraping over the line. Hassan Nawaz was named Player of the Match for his role in getting Quetta home. For Multan, the defeat stretches their losing run to five consecutive PSL matches in 2025.
The match turned on the powerplay. Multan's openers made 56/1 from their first 6 overs, a decent platform. Quetta's openers went one better, reaching 60/0 from theirs. That cleaner start meant Quetta required less from the back half of their innings, even as they kept losing wickets. Both sides scored exactly 80 runs in the middle phase; the difference was Quetta's early wicket in hand.
Multan's 49 in the death was competitive but not quite enough. Quetta matched it with 50 and three wickets fell in that phase, making the finish nervy. Two wickets separated the teams at the close.
Venue and conditions
Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium has hosted 79 T20 matches, and the numbers there suit the chasing side. The ground's chase success rate sits at 60%, and teams winning the toss have opted to field 58% of the time, both figures pointing in the same direction. Multan's decision to bat after winning the toss was therefore against the grain of how captains typically approach this venue.
The average first-innings score at Rawalpindi in T20 cricket is 214, which means Multan's 185 fell some way short of what this outfield and pitch combination can produce. The average powerplay at this ground yields 41 runs; both sides bettered that comfortably. Average death-over runs across matches here stand at 34 per innings, so the 49 and 50 scored in the final phase by Multan and Quetta respectively were above par, reflecting the high-scoring nature of this particular contest.
Flatness tends to reward top-order batters early, while spinners can be effective in the middle overs as the surface slows. Teams posting big totals at Rawalpindi generally do so by not losing quick wickets through overs 7 to 15, the phase where this match, frankly, was won and lost.
How to watch
PSL 2025 matches are available to UK viewers on Sky Sports Cricket. Live streaming is accessible via Sky Go and the NOW TV streaming service for those without a satellite subscription. Matches are played in Pakistan Standard Time, which runs four hours ahead of British Summer Time, so evening fixtures in Rawalpindi typically start in the early afternoon for UK viewers.
For up-to-date scheduling and any broadcast changes, the Sky Sports website carries the full PSL fixture list.
Recent form
The form gap between these two sides heading into the match was stark. Quetta Gladiators had won four of their last five completed PSL fixtures in 2025, beating Islamabad United twice and Peshawar Zalmi, with one no-result against Lahore Qalandars. Their win over Multan in this match was very much in keeping with that momentum.
Multan Sultans, by contrast, had lost all five of their preceding matches in this PSL season, falling to Islamabad United, Lahore Qalandars, Karachi Kings, and Peshawar Zalmi before this game. A team in that kind of run often struggles to convert close situations, and so it proved here: they had Quetta at 190/8 with the match still alive, but could not take the final wickets they needed. The Sultans' next fixtures will need to show some tactical adjustment if they are to salvage their tournament.