PSL 7: Franchises boost teams with supplementary and replacement draft

ISLAMABAD: The six HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchises on Saturday picked additional players and submitted partial replacements for unavailable players in a supplementary and replacement draft, said a statement from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

Karachi Kings had the first pick for the supplementary draft and chose Sahibzada Farhan, winner of the PCB Domestic Cricketer of the Year Award 2021.

Lahore Qalandar who had the second pick chose Mohammad Imran Randhawa.

“In the next four picks; Islamabad United added pacer Musa Khan, who played for them in the 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons; Quetta Gladiators reserved their pick; Multan Sultans picked England pacer David Willey, and Peshawar Zalmi picked Mohammad Umar.

“The second round followed [a] reverse order in which Peshawar Zalmi, the winners of the second edition of HBL PSL, going first, reserved their pick. Defending champions Multan Sultans picked Rizwan Hussain, 2019 edition’s Quetta Gladiators picked Ghulam Mudassar, two-time champions Islamabad United plucked Zahir Khan, Lahore Qalandars further boosted their pace department with the addition of Akif Javed and Karachi Kings bagged Jordan Thompson,” the PCB said.

According to the statement, each franchise was allowed to pick a maximum of one foreign cricketer out of the two supplementary picks.

Moving on to the replacement draft, the defending champions replaced Odean Smith with wicketkeeper-batter Johnson Charles and Rovman Powell with Dominic Drakes.

The Gladiators opted to change Naveen-ul-Haq with Luke Wood, James Vince with Will Smeed, Jason Roy with Shimron Hetmyer, and Afghanistan’s Noor Ahmed with Ali Imran.

Karachi Kings proceeded to replace Pakistan U19 captain Qasim Akram with left-arm spinner Mohammad Taha Khan since the former is busy in West Indies playing in the ICC Men’s U19 Cricket World Cup. The statement added the team also reserved its pick for Tom Abell.

Meanwhile, Islamabad United replaced Zeeshan Zameer with Mohammad Huraira.

“The unavailability of English wicketkeeper-batter Phil Salt for a few initial matches saw Ben Dunk reuniting with Lahore Qalandars.

“Peshawar Zalmi and Quetta Gladiators reserved their one supplementary pick each, while five franchises, except Quetta Gladiators, reserved their picks in the replacement round,” the statement said.