The draft for the 10th edition of the PSL will take place on January 11. The draft date is later than where PSL drafts have historically been held, although that is partly due to the window for the tournament being pushed back a month; It will now take place over a four-week period between early April and mid-May, and the PCB will no longer view a clash with the IPL as a no-go area.
While no further details regarding player availability have been announced, the draft is likely to make heavy use of players who were not sold in the IPL auction. One of the factors that influenced the PSL to move into the IPL slot was the greater degree of certainty that non-IPL players would be available due to the almost complete lack of international matches during that period.
In this year’s IPL, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Akeal Hosein, Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid and Keshav Maharaj were among the unsold players, and while many may have had international commitments during the PSL window in other years, that won’t happen. will be the case this time.
This does not guarantee that all of those players will be available for the PSL. The England Cricket Board (ECB) is currently embroiled in a dispute with the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) after they announced that they would not issue NOCs for first-class cricketers to play in any foreign league, apart from the IPL which It coincided with the national season. . While the T20 Blast, which begins on May 29, will not clash with the PSL, the County Championship begins on April 4 and is almost certain to do so. The terms of any resolution will likely have a significant impact on the PSL, which has historically attracted largely foreign talent from England.
The move to the IPL window, which Pak Gazette first reported on in 2022, is one that the PCB is looking to make permanent as it attempts to move away from the increasingly narrow December-March window it currently operates in, where not only does it clash with four other T20 leagues, but also a busy international cricket calendar. By contrast, moving to the April-May window means little or no full membership in international cricket and only the IPL, against which, officials acknowledge, it cannot compete but can attempt to coexist. And if, as expected, the PSL adds two new teams from 2026, there remains potential to accommodate a longer season in that window.
In the medium term, it will also help the PSL avoid playing almost entirely during Ramadan, as would have happened in 2025. As part of the lunar calendar, Ramadan begins ten days earlier each year according to the Gregorian calendar, so it would clash with the usual PSL window of February to March for the next few years. Ramadan not only affects game schedules and crowd participation, but it is also a great window for advertising; Playing the PSL in Ramadan would affect the league’s advertising and sponsorship revenue.
The decision to change windows was by no means a decision that achieved universal agreement. Pak Gazette understands that several franchise owners were skeptical, if not outright opposed, to the move at the time. However, the decision did not necessarily require the support of the franchises, as the PSL governing council had the authority to make a unilateral decision on the matter.
