PSL-4: Interesting scenario ahead as teams close to finalise players' retention

KARACHI: With the players draft for the 4th edition of Pakistan Super League just days away and franchises’ management having final discussion over players combination, the PCB has released a list of Diamond, Gold, Silver and Emerging category players.

The quest for platinum category players is also set to become more interesting as New Zealander Corey Anderson has also joined the galaxy of stars for the next edition of PSL as platinum player.

Ahead of PSL players draft which is scheduled to be held on November 20 in Islamabad, the teams will have to finalise their retention before the deadline of November 13.

Each team can go with 10 retentions. This could be any combination staying within the limits of a maximum of three players each in Platinum, Diamond and Gold. Teams can retain up to five Silver and two Emerging players.

Keeping this in mind, the hot picks in this year's draft will be AB de Villiers, Mohammad Hafeez, Steve Smith, Corey Anderson, Thisara Perera from Platinum.

In Diamond and Gold, teams will be looking at players like Ben Dunk, Dawid Malan, Sikandar Raza, Brendan Taylor, James Vince, Tim Bresnan, Ben Cutting, Dan Christian, Ben Laughlin, Qais Ahmad and Wayne Parnell.

Players, who agree, may also drop down from Platinum to Diamond, Diamond to Gold and Gold to Silver, should they go unpicked in their preferred rounds.

Lahore Qalandars, that earlier released Brendon McCullum from the roster and traded Sunil Narine and Umar Akmal with Quetta has currently Fakhar Zaman and Chris Lynn in Platinum players list.

Qalandars now have their eyes on South African AB de Villiers and Pakistan’s Mohammad Hafeez and they are likely to release Chris Lynn.

Peshawar Zalmi have Wahab Riaz, Hassan Ali and Kamran Akmal as their Platinum players at the moment and they need one foreigner in the category, which means they will have to lay off one of the three Pakistani players already with them in the top category.

They also have the option of making a top-category player as ambassador or mentor to keep him in roster.

According to PSL rules, teams are allowed to have one player mentor — anyone who has captained his national team and is inactive for a year or is retired. Teams are also allowed to have one player ambassador.

Ambassadors and mentors can drop one category below their base category.

Quetta Gladiators, who have Shane Watson and Sarfraz Ahmed in Platinum category from previous edition, has this year traded Sunil Narine.

If they keep with this formation then they won’t have to pick any Platinum category player from the draft. However, they have this option of making a player an ambassador or mentor to get a pick in top category.

Karachi Kings may do the same with Shahid Afridi, if he chose to stay with the team. They also have Mohammad Amir, Colin Munro, Colin Ingram and Babar Azam in the Platinum category. They have the option of making Afridi player mentor and player ambassador from either Aamir or Babar, which will allow them to have three remaining players as platinum category players.

Two-time champion Islamabad United have Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Luke Ronchi as their Platinum players with Misbah already stating that he won’t play PSL.

With all this scenario and likelihood, one can safely say that fans of PSL will have interesting time in next few days as build up to player draft, which is going to entertain them before the mega show.