Overseas stars go under the hammer in PSL 2017 draft

Up to 414 players went under the hammer in the 2017 edition of the PSL auction which took place at the Dubai Sports City. Dubai will host the second edition of the Pakistan Super League having already hosted the first edition last year. In spite of not having the bulk of the matches played in Pakistan, the crowds still turn up for the matches to witness some of the players perform.

Among the players to be drafted were former New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Shakib-al-Hasan, Afghanistan keeper Mohammad Shahzad, and England skipper Eoin Morgan. The inclusion of Morgan was seen as a rather controversial move as the England skipper sat out of the team on their tour of Bangladesh. Najam Sethi, the chairman of the PCB however, went on to state that top security would be provided for the overseas players on the tour.

“International players know what we can do; most of them are ready to come to Pakistan and play. It will be a fly-in, fly-out plan and the government has promised to give full security to the players. We are convinced that the final will happen in Lahore,” he said.

“PSL will be a separate company from next month onwards with the majority of directors employed from outside the board,” he said. “And reason for this is to eliminate PCB’s politics from the league and attract more private sector participation.” The chairman also revealed that he would step down from his post in the near future. “The chairman of PSL will be an outside non-executive director as well,” he added.

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“The success of PSL is exhibited from the star-studded cast we have this time around,” he said. However, he lamented that the franchises kept a higher retention – which will be reviewed next year. “Unfortunately, retentions were high this time around. Perhaps the franchises were thinking not many players would join – but they did. Nevertheless, we will review the retention policy for next time,” he added.

Shahid Afridi handed over the captaincy reigns of the Peshawar Zalmi to former West Indies skipper Darren Sammy. Afridi, who has been under the gun for the better part of this calendar year went ahead and stated that he was giving up the captaincy to Sammy as a mark of respect. However, this is how the three rounds of drafts panned out.

Round-1 Platinum: Brendon McCullum (Lahore Qalandars), Chris Gayle (Karachi Kings), Misbah-ul-Haq (Islamabad United), Shahid Afridi (Peshawar Zalmi), Kevin Pietersen (Quetta Gladiators)

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Round-2 Platinum: Sunil Narine (Lahore Qalandars), Kieron Pollard (Karachi Kings), Eoin Morgan (Peshawar Zalmi), Sarfraz Ahmed (Quetta Gladiators), Shane Watson (Injured – Islamabad United)

Round-3 Platinum: Umar Akmal (Lahore Qalandars), Shoaib Malik (Karachi Kings), Wahab Riaz (Peshawar Zalmi), Ahmad Shehzad (Quetta Gladiators), Andre Russell (Islamabad United)

Over four hundred foreign and national players will be divided into five categories. The platinum category includes 28 players, diamond category 33, gold category 74, silver category 255 and emerging category includes 24 players. In Platinum category, 9 Pakistani and 19 foreign players have been included.

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