The PSL Pakistan Super League 2017 is scheduled to begin on Feb 9th 2017 in UAE. The opening ceremony and the first match will be played on Feb 9th while the finals will take place in Lahore’s Gadaffi stadium on March 7. The number of matches has been increased from 16 to 18.

A few of the players were retained from the previous season by teams while the others were picked afresh from the PSL Draft. New Players like Eoin Morgan, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine and Brendon McCullum had also agreed to getting themselves placed in the Draft and were picked up by respective teams during the Draft, while Chris Gayle was let go of by Lahore and selected by Karachi.

The following players namely Tilakaratne Dilshan, Thisara Perera, Rilee Rossouw, Marlon Samuels, Andre Fletcher, Mahmudullah Riyad, James Franklin, Chris Green, Jason Roy and Nathan McCullum got a nod as replacement players instead of injured of partly unavailable players.

Misbah-ul-Haq will lead the defending champions Islamabad United yet again while Shahid Afridi handed over the captaincy of Peshawar Zalmi to Darren Sammy. Sarfaraz Ahmed will look to guide the Quetta Gladiators, while Sangakkara leads the Karachi Kings. Lahore Qalandars will be captained by Brendon McCullum.

The HBL PSL cricket league has put the cricket action from the country back on the map. Boasting of international players and a league like format, the tournament took place in three stages, which was played in Dubai and Sharjah. The teams representing five major cities – Peshawar, Quetta, Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore took part in the competition.

 

By Shazmeen Syed.