Imad, Nawaz, Afridi, Tanvir go platinum ahead of PSL's fifth season

KARACHI: Imad Wasim, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi, and Sohail Tanvir have been promoted to the platinum category as the Pakistan Cricket Board on Friday announced the local players' categories ahead of the for the fifth season of the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

According to the PCB, the players’ categories were finalised after inputs from all the franchises. “As part of the category renewal process, one representative from each of the six franchises voted for local player categories," it said in a statement.

"Franchise representatives were not allowed to vote for their own players. Teams had a right to submit review requests at the end of this process,” the PCB added.

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Tanvir — who was among the top performers in the PSL's previous edition and ended the National T20 Cup as its leading wicket taker — was promoted from diamond category to platinum.

Imad and Nawaz were also promoted from diamond category to the top one while Afridi — who was in gold earlier — was also included in the platinum category.

Platinum is the highest paid category among the PSL's players.

Imad, Nawaz, Afridi, and Tanvir join Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Aamir, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Nawaz, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Sohail Tanvir, and Wahab Riaz in the platinum category.

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On the other hand, Ahmed Shahzad, Imamul Haq, Haris Sohail, Iftekhar Ahmed, and Umer Akmal were promoted to the diamond category.

The PCB noted that players who have donned the Pakistani colours were assigned a base category of gold. According to this year’s draft rules, each team is allowed to retain up to eight players from last year’s roster.

In a major surprise, Mohammad Sami — who was diamond previously and led Islamabad United in the tournament — has been relegated to gold category alongside Ruman Raees, who was relegated on request of his team.

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Haris Rauf, who entered as a player from the Lahore Qalandars' talent hunt category, received a major boost as he was upped to gold as well. He is now expected to earn around $40,000 from the PSL if retained or picked by the team.

Sohail Akhtar, too, was bumped up from silver to gold category.

However, Umer Khan — another highlight of previous edition — remained in the emerging players' category as he was not given a promotion.

The PCB added that under-23 (U23) players who have been called to the Pakistani squad before category finalisation could not be a part of the emerging category. Additionally, they were also not allowed to be part of a squad as an emerging player for more than two years unless they had played three or less matches in two years.

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The PSL teams reserve the right to float relegation requests for the players before they were finalised. Once a request is floated, other teams shall be given a chance to meet the player’s base category.

If no team matches the player’s base category, the player will be relegated to a category below his base one. “Relegation requests may only be floated after obtaining consent from the player,” said the PCB.

Consequent to the announcement of players’ categories, the PSL teams can now decide on trading or retaining the players. A list of local players not part of the PSL 4 shall be released separately.

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Following is the newly-announced categories for the local players:

Platinum

Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Aamir, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Nawaz, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Sohail Tanvir, and Wahab Riaz.

Diamond

Ahmed Shehzad, Asif Ali, Haris Sohail, Iftekhar Ahmed, Imam ul Haq, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Rizwan, Umer Akmal, Usman Shinwari, and Yasir Shah.

Gold

Aamir Yamin, Aizaz Cheema, Anwar Ali, Awais Zia, Hammad Azam, Haris Rauf, Hussain Talat, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Sami, Rahat Ali, Rumman Raees, Saad Ali, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Butt, Shakeel Ansar, Shan Masood, Sohail Akhtar, Sohail Khan, Umer Amin, Waqas Maqsood, and Zafar Gohar.

Silver

Agha Salman, Ahsan Ali, Ali Shafique, Ammad Butt, Danish Aziz, Ghulam Mudasir, Gohar Ali, Hassan Khan, Ibtesam Sheikh, Jaahid Ali, Jalat Khan, Jamal Anwar, Khalid Usman, Irfan Khan, Mohammad Asghar, Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Irfan Jnr, Mohammad Musa, Naseem Shah, Nauman Ali, Rizwan Hussain, Sameen Gul, Samiullah, Saud Shakil, Umaid Asif, Umar Siddiq, and Usama Mir.

Emerging

Ali Imran, Abrar Ahmed, Mohammad Azam Khan, Mohammad Junaid, Mohammad Ilyas, Nabi Gul, Nasir Nawaz, Umair Masood, and Umer Khan.