A plethora of international players will be part of the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2021 Draft.
According to sources, around 356 foreign players will be part of the draft on December 12. However, some of the top names won’t be part of the seventh season due to international commitments.
Spinners Rashid Khan and Tabraiz Shamsi, who are among the top five T20I bowlers in the world, will be among the players to watch out for during the draft.
It must be noted that the players in the draft are from South Africa, England, West Indies, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Ireland among others.
Foreign Players
Some of the foreign players who have registered for the draft are mentioned below.
Platinum Category
Tabraiz Shamsi*, David Miller, Rilee Rossouw, Marchant de Lange (South Africa)
Tymal Mills*, Jason Roy*, James Vince, Liam Livingstone, David Willey (England)
Chris Gayle* (West Indies)
Colin Munro (New Zealand)
Isuru Udana, Thisara Perera (Sri Lanka)
Rashid Khan* (Afghanistan)
* Indicates that a player is available for limited number of matches only
Diamond Category
James Faulkner, Ben Cutting, Ben Dunk (Australia)
Lewis Gregory, Alex Hales, Harry Brook, Joe Clarke, Samit Patel, Dan Lawrence (England)
Imran Tahir, Dane Vilas (South Africa)
David Wiese (Namibia)
Kusal Mendis, Dushmantha Chameera (Sri Lanka)
Fabian Allen, Sherfane Rutherford (West Indies)
Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Najibullah Zadran, Qais Ahmad (Afghanistan)
Sources also revealed that Gold Category has 106 players, meanwhile 201 cricketers are part of the Silver Category.
Local players
As far a local players are concerned, 495 cricketers have been included in Gold, Silver and Emerging Categories.
Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Ahmed Shehzad, Azhar Ali, Bilal Asif, Fawad Alam, Umar Akmal, Haris Sohail, Junaid Khan, Khurram Manzoor, Rumman Raees, Saud Shakeel, Tabish Khan and Yasir Shah are some of the players in the Gold category.
The marquee event is set to take place from 27 January to 27 February. Karachi will host 15 matches in the first-leg, while Lahore will stage the remaining 19 matches.