Over 144 cricketers from 14 countries register for PSL 2020 Gold category

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday released the preliminary list of Gold Category foreign players for the Pakistan Super League (PSL) Player Draft 2019 as well as a list of 325 local players.

The list of 325 local players, who have been assigned Gold, Silver and Emerging categories, includes cricketers from the domestic first and second XI squads as well as U19 talent.

As part of this year’s policy, players who have already represented Pakistan internationally have been assigned a base category of Gold. The cut-off date for these records was the same that applied to category renewals of local players that took place last month. 

With the aim of promoting fresh talent, PSL rules require teams to have at least two Emerging category cricketers in a squad of 16 of which the said players have to be U23 to qualify for this category.

Each team can now nominate up to six emerging players and up to two talent hunt discoveries that may be added to this list.

In the Gold category, 48 England, 40 West Indies, 19 Sri Lanka, 10 Bangladesh, six Afghanistan, four each from Australia and New Zealand, three  each from Ireland, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and one each from Canada, the Netherlands, Scotland and the United States of America have registered.

Some of the most prominent players in the preliminary Gold Category are Gulbadin Naib,  Chris Wood, Saqib Mahmood, Lahiru Thirimanne and Sheldon Cottrell.

Local players in the Gold category are Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Fawad Alam, Sharjeel Khan and Umar Gul.