Top foreign players to feature in PSL Players Draft

Around 200 foreign players will feature in a list of 500 cricketers in the Players Draft which will be held in Lahore tomorrow for the third Pakistan Super League.

Karachi:  Around 200 foreign players will feature in a list of 500 cricketers in the Players Draft which will be held in Lahore tomorrow for the third Pakistan Super League.

Top foreign players, including Chris Lynn, J P Duminy, Imran Tahir, Carlos Brathwaite, Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo, Jimmy Neesham, Angelo Mathews, Mustafizur Rahman, Mitchell McClenaghan, Mitchell Johnson, Colin Munro, Luke Ronchi, Adil Rashid, Wayne Parnell, Thisara Perera, Rashid Khan and Colin Ingram will up for grab in the Players Draft.

The third PSL will have a new -- sixth -- franchise in Multan Sultans. Each franchise has a salary cap of USD 1.2 million for the players draft to complete a squad of 20 players.

Teams have already retained nine players each for the third PSL and will go into the Players Draft to pick one platinum, one diamond, one gold, two silver and two emerging players each in order to complete their squads of 16.

Teams may also pick up to four players in the supplementary rounds.

Interestingly, only one Pakistani player, Ahmed Shehzad features in the platinum category which has 21 players for the draft.

A high number of players from England, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will feature in the players draft.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that it will be holding a number of matches of the third PSL in Lahore and Karachi in March next year, including the final.

Sources say that the foreign players, who sign contracts for the PSL, will have to also sign a clause confirming they will be available to play for their franchises in Pakistan. For this, they will be paid extra fees of USD 10,000 to 20,000 per match if they travel to Pakistan.