Australian skipper Aaron Finch to star in PSL 2023

• Aaron Finch has signed up for the upcoming Pakistan Super League (PSL) player draft.
• Finch has vast T20 experience under his belt, with nearly 11,000 runs in 367 matches at a strike rate of 139.31.
• The draft is likely to take place in the third week of November 2022.

In a major development, Australia's T20I captain Aaron Finch has registered for the much-anticipated eighth edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) player draft 2023.

Finch has vast T20 experience under his belt, with nearly 11,000 runs in 367 matches at a strike rate of 139.31.

England’s Reece Topley, Tom Curran, and Adil Rashid, South Africa’s Wayne Parnell, Lungi Ngidi and Rassie Van Der Dussen, Sri Lanka’s Dasun Shanaka, and Wanindu Hasaranga, West Indies’ Nicholas Pooran, and Evin Lewis and New Zealand’s Jimmy Neesham are also among the players who have registered for the draft.

Earlier, England’s Alex Hales, Dawid Malan and Jason Roy, New Zealand’s Martin Guptill, South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw and David Miller, Afghanistan’s Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, Bangladesh’s Shakib-al-Hasan, Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza and the Netherlands’ Colin Ackermann have already been confirmed by the PCB for the draft.

It must be noted that the draft is likely to take place in the third week of November 2022.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has already revealed the pick order for the draft, where defending champions Lahore Qalandars will make the first pick.

Quetta Gladiators and Multan Sultans will have second and third picks. The fourth and fifth picks will be done by Karachi Kings and Islamabad United. Meanwhile, Peshawar Zalmi will make the sixth pick.

The next 17 rounds were decided through a special statistical tool.

The PCB has also completed the local player category renewal process for the upcoming edition of the league.

“The teams will now put forward relegation requests for the players before finalising retentions. After relegation requests are floated, all teams are given an opportunity to meet the player’s base category. If the player’s base category is not matched, the player may be relegated to a category below his base category,” the PCB said in a press release.

Next year’s event will be staged at four venues, Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Multan, and will run from February 9 to March 19, 2023.