On 12th November 2018, Pakistan Super League (PSL) drafting procedure took place at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Lahore. During the draft event, the most expensive and the 6th team of PSL was announced i.e. Multan Sultans. Star all-rounder Shoaib Malik and Tom Moody were named as the captain and coach respectively of the team.
Drafting Process
To bring Multan Sultans into the play and to make sure transparent team selection, each of the other 5 PSL teams were asked to retain 9 players each. Thereafter, the newly-inducted Multan Sultans were asked to pick 9 players from the list of released players and a pool of 45 players.
As many as 501 players (308 foreign and 193 local) made themselves available in the drafting event. All 6 franchises were permitted to handpick 11 players in total to load their squad with a maximum of 20 players within the available salary purse.
Each team had a purse of $1.2 million. The salary cap of each category is defined as following:
- Platinum: $140,000-$230,000
- Diamond: $70,000-$85,000
- Gold: $50,000-$60,000
- Silver: $22,000-$33,000
- Emerging: $10,000-$12,000
Squads (as of 20th Feb 2018)
Islamabad United:
Retained players: Misbah-ul-Haq, Andre Russell, Samuel Badree, Muhammed Sami, Rumman Raees, Shadab Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Amad Butt, Asif Ali
Draft picks: JP Duminy (Samit Patel as cover), Luke Ronchi, Faheem Ashraf, Sam Billings (Chadwick Walton as cover), Zafar Gohar, Sahibzada Farhan, Hussain Talat
Supplementary: Alex Hales, Steven Finn, Muhammed Hasnain, Muhammed Hasan
Player 21: Rohail Nazir
Karachi Kings:
Retained players: Shahid Afridi, Muhammed Amir, Imad Wasim, Babar Azam, Muhammed Rizwan, Ravi Bopara, Usman Khan Shinwari, Usama Mir, Khurram Manzoor
Draft picks: Colin Ingram, Tymal Mills, Joe Denly, David Wiese, Tabish Khan, Muhammed Irfan Jr., Hasan Mohsin
Supplementary: Lendl Simmons, Eoin Morgan, Saifullah Bangash, Muhammed Taha
Player 21: Mushtaq Ahmed Kalhoro
Lahore Qalandars:
Retained players: Umar Akmal, Sunil Narine, Brendon McCullum, Fakhar Zaman, Yasir Shah, Sohail Khan, Cameron Delport, Aamer Yamin
Draft picks: Chris Lynn, Mustafizur Rehman (Dinesh Ramdin as cover), Bilal Asif, Agha Salman, Raza Hasan, Sohail Akhtar, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Ghulam Mudassir
Supplementary: Anton Devcich, Mitchell McClenaghan, Gulraiz Sadaf, Imran Khan Jr.
Player 21: Salman Irshad
Multan Sultans:
Retained players: Shoaib Malik, Kieron Pollard, Kumar Sangakkara, Sohail Tanvir, Junaid Khan, Muhammed Irfan, Kashif Bhatti, Irfan Khan, Sohaib Maqsood
Draft picks: Imran Tahir (Thisara Perera as cover), Darren Bravo, Ahmed Shehzad, Muhammed Abbas, Nicholas Pooran (Zahir Khan as cover), Abdullah Shafiq, Saif Badar
Supplementary: Hardus Viljoen, Umar Gul, Umar Siddiq, Ross Whiteley
Player 21: Shan Masood
Peshawar Zalmi:
Retained players: Muhammed Hafeez, Wahab Riaz, Shakib Al Hasan (Liam Dawson as cover), Kamran Akmal, Darren Sammy, Hasan Ali (Umaid Asif), Haris Sohail, Chris Jordan, Muhammed Asghar
Draft picks: Dwayne Bravo (Dwayne Smith as cover), Tamim Iqbal (Dwayne Smith as cover), Hammad Azam, Saad Nasim, Taimoor Sultan, Sameen Gul, Ibtisam Sheikh
Supplementary: Andre Fletcher, Riki Wessels, Khalid Usman, Muhammed Arif
Player 21: Khushdil Shah
Quetta Gladiators:
Retained players: Sarfraz Ahmed, Kevin Pietersen, Rilee Rossouw, Mahmudullah (John Hastings as cover), Asad Shafiq, Muhammed Nawaz, Anwar Ali, Mir Hamza, Umer Amin
Draft picks: Shane Watson, Ben Laughlin (Jofra Archer as cover), Rahat Ali, Rameez Raja Jr., Saad Ali, Saud Shakeel, Hassan Khan
Supplementary: Jason Roy (John Hastings as cover), Rashid Khan (Chris Green as cover), Azam Khan, Faraz Ahmed Khan
Player 21: Muhammed Junaid
In your opinion, which team is looking the strongest of them all?