PSL 7 draft to take place today in Lahore

• Much-awaited PSL 7 edition is scheduled to begin next month. 
• Player draft to take place at the National High-Performance Centre today at 4.00 pm.
  
• Lahore Qalandars to have first pick, followed by Multan Sultans, Karachi Kings, Islamabad United, Peshawar Zalmi, and Quetta Gladiators.

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

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 the Platinum, Diamond, and Gold categories, five in the Silver, two Emerging and up to two in the Supplementary categories.

For the 2022 event, the PCB has introduced the Right to Match Card. This means each side will have one card that 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 the 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 the PSL.

The Qalandars, who lost out in the final of PSL 2020 to the Karachi Kings, 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

Originally published in The News