It has been a brutal PSL 11 for Rawalpindi Pindiz. Pakistan’s newest PSL franchise entered this season with high hopes, a decorated captain, and a squad packed with international names. What followed was one of the most difficult debut campaigns any team has endured in the history of the league. Now, with the season effectively over, captain Mohammad Rizwan has spoken candidly — blaming bad luck, owning personal failure, and reflecting honestly on what went wrong.
Rizwan’s Honest Assessment: “We’ve Been the Unluckiest Team”
In a press conference that showed a very different side of one of Pakistan’s most celebrated cricketers, Rizwan did not hide behind excuses — but he did point to the role misfortune played in derailing his side’s season.
Rawalpindiz captain Mohammad Rizwan described his side as one of the unluckiest teams in PSL 11, saying cricket often comes down to small moments going against a side — like dropped catches, missed chances, and match situations repeatedly turning in favor of opponents — which has unfortunately contributed to Rawalpindiz’s difficult season. ProPakistani
Rizwan said luck has not been on the team’s side. He described cricket as a game in which outcomes do not always go as expected, even when players play to the best of their ability. Photo News
But Rizwan was equally quick to look inward. He did not hide behind bad luck alone — he accepted personal responsibility in a way that was striking given the pressure he is already under.
Speaking to the media after the loss, Rizwan said he has not performed well enough and openly questioned whether he currently deserves a place in the side. He also acknowledged that his struggles have affected the team’s overall results. Rizwan said he takes responsibility for mistakes in both execution and planning, describing himself as human and accepting that flaws in his approach contributed to the poor performance. Photo News
“I Don’t Deserve a Spot in the Pakistan Team”
Perhaps the most talked-about moment from the press conference was Rizwan’s remarkable admission about his own standing in the national team setup.
Rizwan spoke candidly about his form, admitting that based on his current performance, he does not deserve a spot in the Pakistan national team. He explained that squad selection took place while he was playing in the Big Bash League, and he himself acknowledged that his performance at the time was not worthy of inclusion in the team. News24
For a player who was once considered one of the most automatic selections in Pakistan’s white-ball squads, those are extraordinary words. They reflect not just a rough patch, but a genuine reckoning with where his form currently stands.
A Season That Was Hard Before It Even Started
To understand just how difficult Rawalpindiz’s PSL 11 has been, you have to go back to before the first ball was even bowled. This was a new franchise playing its debut PSL season — and within weeks, the injury gods struck hard.
Naseem Shah was ruled out of PSL 2026 with a side injury, dealing a huge blow to Rawalpindiz. The Mohammad Rizwan-led side, already winless in PSL 11, faced mounting pressure as they struggled for form and consistency. NewsX
But Naseem was not alone. Rawalpindiz were unlucky with the injuries to Zaman Khan and Naseem Shah in the department they were already suffering scarcity. They probably picked a squad assuming they would play the bulk of their games at home in Rawalpindi, before events overtook them. ESPN
Losing your two frontline pace bowlers — in a T20 tournament where pace is everything — before the competition has found its rhythm is about as unlucky as it gets. And yet the problems did not stop there.
Everything That Could Go Wrong, Did Go Wrong
Rawalpindiz 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. ESPN
Toss luck is often dismissed as a minor factor — but in a tournament where batting second has consistently proven to be an advantage, losing almost every toss in a Karachi-dominated fixture list is a meaningful handicap that statistics bear out.
Rawalpindiz remained winless after seven straight defeats, rooted to the bottom of the table. Despite competitive totals in earlier fixtures, their bowling unit repeatedly failed to defend scores. PakPassion.net
The team showed potential in multiple matches but failed to win any of those games. Their winless streak developed because they could not bat effectively against various situations and their players failed to form partnerships. The team’s major downfall happened when their captain Mohammad Rizwan lost his ability to perform well — he was an important player whose performance difficulties made it harder for them to win matches. Cricket Winner
A Record Nobody Wanted — Worst Captain Streak in PSL History
The numbers surrounding Rizwan’s captaincy record this season are stark. And they do not exist in isolation — they are the continuation of a painful trend that began last year.
Rizwan was at the helm when the wheels came off Multan 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. ESPN
That is a statistic that would be hard to believe about almost any other cricketer in Pakistan. For Rizwan — a man who captained Multan Sultans to back-to-back PSL titles and was once considered a generational match-winner — it represents a fall that the cricket world is still trying to make sense of.
Young Players and the Silver Lining
Despite the gloom, Rizwan chose to end on a note of perspective. The Rawalpindiz campaign was not built solely around winning the trophy — it was also designed to give young Pakistani talent a platform.
Rizwan said the team’s wider objective this season remains the promotion of young players within the Rawalpindi setup, suggesting the team was trying to balance immediate results with long-term development. While results have gone against them, Rizwan indicated that nurturing younger talent remains part of the plan. Photo News
While calling the campaign one of the toughest periods of his career, Rizwan maintained that hard work remains the only solution moving forward and expressed hope that fortunes could change in future editions of the league. ProPakistani
There is something admirable in that. In the face of a historically bad run, Rizwan has not passed the blame entirely onto his players or pointed fingers at selection. He has looked himself in the mirror, said things that were hard to say, and talked about the future.
PSL 11 may have been a chapter Rawalpindiz want to close quickly. But the way Rizwan handled the ending — with honesty and humility — says something about the man that the scorecards alone cannot capture.
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