Two Teams, One Trophy: The President's Trophy Final Nobody Saw Coming

Dr. Annelies De Vos · 2026-10-23

The President's Trophy 2026-27 has been a season of surprises, and its final delivers the biggest one yet. State Bank of Pakistan and Markhor IT Solutions will meet at the SBP ground in Karachi for a five-day first-class match starting October 25. One side cruised through the season unbeaten. The other wasn't even in the competition a few months ago. ### How They Got Here The two finalists booked their spots after the seventh and final round of the round-robin stage. Both led the eight-team standings heading into that round, and neither let the position slip. State Bank of Pakistan finished first, with Markhor IT Solutions right behind in second. Here's a detail worth noting: this will be the first first-class fixture of the season played in Karachi. Every earlier match in the competition took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. Meanwhile, the first-class Quaid-e-Azam Trophy starts on November 1, with twenty teams from 16 regions split into gold and silver divisions. ### Markhor's Debut Season Defies the Odds Markhor IT Solutions are playing in the first-class President's Trophy for the very first time. They collected 96 points from seven matches and won two of them. The start wasn't pretty. They failed to win any of their first four games. Then the fifth round changed everything. They beat Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited (OGDCL) by 75 runs. A draw with State Bank of Pakistan followed in the sixth round, and they closed the group stage with a six-wicket victory over Pakistan TV. Back in July, Markhor were declared winners of the grade-II competition on the strength of a first-innings lead over Kingsmen. That's how they earned their place in the top tier. ### State Bank: The Only Unbeaten Side State Bank of Pakistan went through the group stage without a single defeat. No other team could say the same. They collected 107 points, the only total above 100 in the competition. Two of their matches ended in wins, against Ghani in the third round and against OGDCL in the fourth. The remaining five were draws. Steady, patient, and impossible to knock over. ### Kingsmen Go Up, OGDCL Go Down Kingsmen secured promotion to next year's first-class President's Trophy with an 82-run win over Eshaal Associates earlier this week. They'll join their sister team Kingsmen Academy, who finished third this season. Kingsmen will take the place of OGDCL, who ended at the bottom of the table for the second year running. OGDCL had been relegated to the grade-II gold competition last year. They returned to the first-class event after the Pakistan Cricket Board removed WAPDA and Saahir Associates for failing to meet the regulations introduced before the 2026-27 season. Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited pushed OGDCL to the bottom in the last round. They beat Khan Research Laboratories by four wickets in Rawalpindi, chasing down a target of 191. Mohammad Rizwan returned as captain and scored 64 in the first innings, while Abdul Samad remained unbeaten on 69 in the chase. Imam-ul-Haq also came back to domestic cricket in the seventh round. He scored an unbeaten 200 as captain of OGDCL. Hussain Talat and Ali Razzaq made centuries for Ghani, and that helped them hold on for a draw. ### What to Watch in the Final So what should you keep an eye on when October 25 rolls around? - State Bank's unbeaten record against a debutant side with nothing to lose - Markhor's momentum after a rocky start to the season - Five days of first-class cricket in Karachi, a first for the season - The battle between experience and hunger One team has been here before and never lost. The other has never been here at all. That's the kind of final that tends to stick in the memory.