Published: Dec 21, 2015, 07:18 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 21, 2015, 07:18 PM (IST)
The inaugural Pakistan Super League (PSL), that is scheduled to be played in January-February next year, is already creating waves. On Monday, the initial player draft was organised where the five franchises picked up nine players each. The player draft will continue on Tuesday.
The Peshawar franchise titled ‘Peshawar Zalmi’ were the first to pick in the draft and their choice was quite obvious — Pakistan’s Twenty20 International (T20I) skipper Shahid Afridi. Subsequently, the four other franchises ‘Islamabad United’, ‘Lahore Qalandars’, ‘Quetta Gladiators’ and ‘Karachi Kings’ picked up Shane Watson, Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen and Shoaib Malik respectively as their first choice players.
Other notable picks were Andre Russell, Misbah-ul-Haq, Brad Haddin (Islamabad United), Shakib Al Hasan, Lendl Simmons (Karachi Kings), Wahab Riaz, Darren Sammy, Mohammad Hafeez (Peshawar Zalmi), Sarfaraz Ahmed, Jason Holder, Ahmed Shehzad (Quetta Gladiators) and Dwayne Bravo, Yasir Shah, Mustafizur Rahman (Lahore Qalandars).
Of the total 45 players being picked in the player draft on day 1, 24 were from Pakistan, eight from West Indies, six from England, three from Bangladesh, two from Australia and one each from South Africa and Zimbabwe. The teams had no players from Sri Lanka, New Zealand and India, with the latter not allowing their players to participate in the foreign leagues.
One interesting pick from the day was tainted pacer Mohammad Amir, who was drafted by Karachi Kings. Amir’s return to cricket post-serving a five-year ban for being involved in spot fixing has divided the cricket fraternity, with some in favour of his inclusion while the others against it. Apparently, some of his team-mates including Hafeez had raised objection to his possible return to the Pakistan team.
Amir recently played in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) for the Chittagong Vikings team and was fairly successful. It will be interesting to see up to what extent is he being accepted by his team-mates and how he fares in the PSL. The day 2 of the player draft will see more players getting picked. We will bring to you more updates on the same tomorrow.
Islamabad United: 1. Shane Watson, 2. Andre Russell, 3. Misbah-ul-Haq, 4. Samuel Badree, 5. Mohammad Irfan, 6. Brad Haddin, 7. Sharjeel Khan, 8. Mohammad Sami, 9. Khalid Latif.
Karachi Kings: 1. Shoaib Malik, 2. Shakib Al Hasan, 3. Sohail Tanvir, 4. Imad Wasim, 5. Ravi Bopara, 6. Lendl Simmons, 7. Mohammad Amir, 8. Bilawal Bhatti, 9. James Vince.
Peshawar Zalmi: 1. Shahid Afridi, 2. Wahab Riaz, 3. Darren Sammy, 4. Kamran Akmal, 5. Mohammad Hafeez, 6. Chris Jordan, 7. Tamim Iqbal, 8. Junaid Khan, 9. Jim Allenby.
Quetta Gladiators: 1. Kevin Pietersen, 2. Sarfraz Ahmed, 3. Ahmed Shehzad, 4. Anwar Ali, 5. Jason Holder, 6. Luke Wright, 7. Zulfiqar Babar, 8. Umar Gul, 9. Elton Chigumbura.
Lahore Qalandars: 1. Chris Gayle, 2. Dwayne Bravo, 3. Umar Akmal, 4. Mohammad Rizwan, 5. Yasir Shah, 6. Shoaib Maqsood, 7. Mustafizur Rahman, 8. Kevon Cooper, 9. Cameron Delport.
