Pakistan Super League releases list of platinum players

The Pakistan Super League (PSL) has released a list of 308 foreign and local players. The draft for February’s tournament will be held in Lahore on December 21-22 and will feature as many as 171 foreign players. The PCB said 171 foreign and 137 domestic players will be available for drafting by teams. Teams are required to draft two emerging players as part of PCB’s plans to groom their players. PCB said all five teams will be finalizing their coaching panels next week.

Players have been divided into five categories; Platinum, Diamond, Gold, Silver, and Emerging. Each team will be required to pick three players from each of the three top categories (Platinum, Diamond, and Gold) and two from the Emerging category. A team will be able to pick up to five players from the Silver category.

Nine Pakistan players were named in the Platinum category: Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez, Misbah-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Irfan, Sohail Tanvir and Sarfraz Ahmed.

Fast bowler Mohammad Aamir, who made a comeback in the BPL, has found a place in the Gold category. However, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt have been ignored despite being allowed to play the domestic one-day cricket from next month.

Fifty-nine English players were named, including Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, and James Anderson, who were all named in the highest category. The only big English name to be missing is that of the Test captain Alastair Cook who was not named in the draft.

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Nine Australian will be featuring the league. Shane Watson, Brad Haddin and Brett Lee (Platinum), Brad Hodge, Brad Hogg, Shaun Tait, Nathan Hauritz (Diamond), Ben Laughlin and Michael Beer (Gold).

All-rounder Watson may not be available during the first week of the tournament, which will run from February 4-23 in Dubai and Sharjah. Legendary quick Lee will be busy with Masters Cricket League and will also be unavailable for most of the matches scheduled to take place between January 28 and February 14. Lee was picked at $US100,000 in the Masters Champions League (MCL). This means that only Haddin is guaranteed to be available for the whole tournament in the top category.

The remaining foreign players named in the Platinum category are Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell, Dwayne Smith, Marlon Samuels (West Indies), Tillakaratne Dilshan, Lasith Malinga, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews (Sri Lanka) and Shakib Al Hasan (Bangladesh).

West Indies off-spinner Sunil Narine was dropped from the draft after the ICC suspended him two weeks ago for an illegal bowling action, which allows him to play domestic cricket in the Caribbean only. Samuels, who was reported for a suspect bowling action in October, may not be available as an all-rounder.

Sri Lanka duo Sangakkara and Jayawardene will also not be available for a large part of the PSL as they have also signed the MCL.

Just 15 of the 27 players in the Platinum category will be picked up (three in each side) by the five franchises – Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad and Quetta. If a player goes unpicked in a certain category, he will have the choice of getting relegated to the next category. Some players, however, have said they will exit the draft if they don’t get picked up in case they don’t go for their initial asking price. The price of each category has not been revealed yet.

Players from the Associate countries will also fancy their chances. Fourteen cricketers- four from Ireland, three from Afghanistan, two each from Canada, Scotland, the USA and one from the UAE – have been named in the draft.

All five teams will finalize their coaching panels in the coming days, but it remains to be seen if foreign coaches will travel to Lahore to be part of the draft. The PSL will be the first time Pakistan’s domestic T20 tournament will feature players from the other Test-playing nations.

Pakistan Super League Draft:

Platinum players:

Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen,  Shane Watson, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Dwayne Bravo, Darren Sammy, Andre Russell, Dwayne Smith, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Lasith Malinga, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Angelo Mathews,  Brad Haddin, Jimmy Anderson, Ian Bell, Mohammad Hafeez, Misbah-ul-Haq, Younis Khan, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Irfan, Sohail Tanvir, Sarfraz Ahmed, Marlon Samuels,  Brett Lee, Shakib Al Hasan.

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