PSL schedule to be 'announced soon'

LAHORE: The schedule of the eighth edition of the much-awaited national T20 cricket event, Pakistan Super League (PSL), is likely to be announced on Friday, sources told Geo News on Wednesday.

The schedule of the eighth edition of the tournament has been finalised, however, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will hold final consultation with the PSL franchisers tomorrow (Thursday), the sources said.

According to the sources, the inaugural ceremony of the PSL will be staged in Multan as per the current schedule.

The sources added that the matches of the tournament would be played at four different venues. They also mentioned that the PSL will commence on February 13 and the final would be played on March 19.

PSL matches would be played in Karachi, Lahore, Multan, and Rawalpindi, the sources noted. They added that the matches at the four venues would be played simultaneously.

The sources also said that the strategy to allow the PCB to stage one exhibition match in Quetta has also been discussed. The exhibition matches would be played between Peshawar and Quetta, the sources added.

PSL 2023 Draft

The players’ draft for PSL 2023 was held in December last year in Karachi, with around 1,000 local and foreign players available to be picked by six franchises for 61 slots.

Five out of six PSL teams had retained eight players, while Peshawar Zalmi retained seven players last month when the retention and transfer windows were closed.

These teams completed a squad of 18 — which had three players each in the platinum, diamond, and gold categories, five in the silver category, two in emerging and up to two in supplementary categories.

Teams could have up to three foreign players in the first three categories — platinum, diamond, and gold — among them one overseas player was mandatory in platinum and diamond.

In a squad of 16, teams picked five overseas players, while in 18 they had six foreign players.

As many as 517 foreigners and 491 Pakistani players were available for selection.