Preferred local players over foreigners during replacement draft: Akram

Karachi Kings President Wasim Akram, while talking to Cricket Pakistan, revealed that he preferred to give local Pakistan players a chance rather than draft overseas players for the remaining matches of the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) season six.

The 54-year-old praised the talent of young Qasim Akram while stating that Karachi Kings had a good combination.

“I think we have a very talented all-rounder in Qasim Akram. I have seen him, he is a gun fielder. He was also announced as the under-19 captain. Unfortunately, the tour couldn’t happen. But we have good enough players. We have 18 right now and we had the option of getting two new overseas players but I didn’t want to just get overseas players for no reason and they would sit on the bench. I thought it would be better to give Pakistani youngsters a chance,” Akram said.

The legendary former pacer believed that this was going to be like a new tournament because of the new environment and conditions on offer.

“Ideally our performance should remain the same but it is humanly impossible. We were on top around three to four months back. That was when the PSL got postponed. This is now kind of a new tournament. It will be played in a new environment and new pitch. I think 20 matches will be played on one ground including the playoffs, if I am not mistaken. It will definitely impact the square eventually,” he said.

“It will also be hot. It is 40 today and I think it will be 45 or 46 [degree] during the day of dry heat. The teams will have to acclimatise. Not just Karachi Kings, but every player will have to acclimatise. Our player from New Zealand Martin Guptill is coming from a place that has winters right now. Imagine him coming from the winter weather into this intense heat so it will take some time to adjust,” he added.

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Akram stated that Karachi Kings made some good replacements which will bode well for their side during the remaining matches of the HBL PSL 6.

“For us, my mindset is that this is a new tournament. We are going to start from scratch. We are not considering the top position and will start from the beginning. The team also doesn’t have the same players as it did last time. I think we got pretty good replacements. We got Najibullah Zadran, Martin Guptill and Thisara Perera. We found the players we needed to replace Dan Christian, Joe Clarke, and Mohammad Nabi, who is an excellent player. We got Zadran in place of Ingram,” he concluded.