HBL PSL player draft to be held in Lahore today

KARACHI: Team officials will be looking to finalise best possible combinations for the seventh edition of the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) during the player draft which will take on Sunday (today).

The much-awaited PSL will begin next month but before that fans are waiting for the tournament's draft — where the teams will finalise their players for the event.

The event will take place at the National High-Performance Centre today at 4.00 pm. More than 425 players from 32 countries have registered themselves for the draft.

In the Platinum Category, Lahore Qalandars will have the first pick, followed by Multan Sultans, Karachi Kings, Islamabad United, Peshawar Zalmi, and Quetta Gladiators.

Each franchise can comprise up to 18 players, including three each in Platinum, Diamond, and Gold categories, five Silver, two Emerging and up to two Supplementary categories.

For the 2022 event, the PCB has introduced the Right to Match Card. This means each side will have one such card they can utilise during the draft to pick a player originally released from their roster.

The retention, trade, and release window of the PSL 2022 closed on Friday afternoon with Islamabad United, Karachi Kings, Lahore Qalandars, and Peshawar Zalmi consuming their full allocation of eight retentions, while Multan Sultans and Quetta Gladiators retaining seven players each.

The tournament will start on January 27, with 34 matches scheduled to be played in Karachi and Lahore. The first match will be staged under the lights of National Stadium, where Karachi Kings and Multan Sultans will go head-to-head.

Meanwhile, Lahore Qalandars have retained former South African all-rounder David Wiese for PSL and the cricketer is more than happy.

The Qalandars, who were the runner-ups in PSL 2020, have retained eight players — Rashid Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Wiese, Mohammad Hafeez, Ahmed Daniyal, Sohail Akhtar, and Zeeshan Ashraf — for the seventh edition.

Taking to Twitter, Wiese said: "Really excited and honoured to be part of the @lahoreqalandars family again for @thePSLt20."

Wiese joined the Qalandars in 2019 after leaving Karachi Kings and has now become an integral part of the squad due to his power hitting. —with inputs from agencies