With the Pakistan Super League season 3 approaching fast, the franchises are getting ready to build their teams for the epic battle of 2018.
PCB has just announced that the draft of PSL season 3 will be held on November 12 in Lahore. But did you know how the draft works? Here is a little guide to help you understand how the teams will pick their players for the upcoming season.
How does the PSL players draft work?
All the six franchises of the PSL will be allowed to pick a maximum of 20 players from the draft. Every franchise is allowed to spend a maximum of $1.2 million (approximately PKR 126,258,000).
There are four categories from which the franchises can pick players from. These are Platinum, Diamond, Gold, Silver and Emerging Players.
Franchises are allowed to pick 3 players each from Platinum, Diamond, and Gold categories. After these players are picked, the franchises will move forward to pick 5 players from the silver category. Finally, the franchises will pick 2 players from the emerging players’ category.
Out of the 20 players picked, the last four players are called supplementary players which can be used to replace any absentees in the team when required by the franchise.
PSL 3 Team Retentions
Franchises are allowed to retain 9 players from their previous season. The team retention list was released last month:
Lahore Qalandars:
- Sunil Narine (Platinum)
- Umar Akmal (Platinum)
- Brendon McCullum (Diamond & Mentor)
- Fakhar Zaman (Diamond)
- Yasir Shah (Gold)
- Sohail Khan (Gold)
- Cameron Delport (Silver)
- Aamir Yamin (Silver)
- Bilawal Bhatti (Silver)
Islamabad United:
- Andre Russell (Platinum)
- Misbah ul Haq (Platinum)
- Samuel Badree (Diamond)
- Mohammad Sami (Diamond)
- Rumman Raees (Gold, Ambassador)
- Shadab Khan (Gold)
- Iftikhar Ahmed (Silver)
- Amad Butt (Silver)
- Asif Ali (Silver)
Karachi Kings:
- Shahid Afridi (Platinum)
- Mohammad Amir (Platinum)
- Imad Wasim (Diamond)
- Babar Azam (Diamond)
- Mohammad Rizwan (Gold)
- Ravi Bopara (Gold)
- Usman Shinwari (Silver)
- Usama Mir (Silver)
- Khurram Manzoor (Silver)
Quetta Gladiators:
- Sarfraz Ahmed (Platinum)
- Kevin Pietersen (Platinum)
- Rilee Rossouw (Diamond)
- Mahmudullah Riyad (Diamond)
- Asad Shafiq (Gold)
- Mohammad Nawaz (Gold)
- Anwar Ali (Silver)
- Mir Hamza (Silver)
- Umer Amin (Silver)
Peshawar Zalmi:
- Mohammad Hafeez (Platinum)
- Wahab Riaz (Platinum)
- Shakib al Hasan (Diamond)
- Kamran Akmal (Diamond)
- Darren Sammy (Gold, Player Coach)
- Hasan Ali (Gold)
- Haris Sohail (Silver)
- Chris Jordan (Silver)
- Mohammad Asghar (Silver)
Lahore Qalandars will pick first
The order in which the franchises pick players is based on their performance from the last season. For example, the franchise that was at the bottom of the pool in the last season gets to pick players first. In this season’s case, Lahore Qalanders will go first followed by Islamabad, Karachi Kings, Quetta Gladiators, and Peshawar Zalmi.
Since Multan Sultans is a new franchise in the Pakistan Super League, they will be the last one to pick the players.
The player draft allows franchises to trade in players if they come to an agreement with each other.
Here are the biggest trade-ins that have already happened.
Imad Wasim is the new captain of Karachi Kings
Ahead of the players draft, Karachi Kings have already announced that their team will be led by Imad Wasim. The announcement was made today during a press conference which was also attended by Shahid Afridi.
Previously, Karachi King has been captained by Shoaib Malik in the first season and Kumar Sangakkara in the second edition of PSL.