Top players to feature in PSL draft

Lahore - Akram hits out at ICC's inability to get India and Pakistan to play

A host of international T20 specialists, including the likes of Shane Watson, Chris Lynn and Dwayne Bravo, will be among the 501 foreign and domestic players available for selection at the players draft of the upcoming Pakistan Super League (PSL), to be held on Sunday.

Besides the trio, some of the other top international names are: South Africans Jean Paul Duminy, Imran Tahir, Colin Ingram and Wayne Parnell; Carlos Brathwaite from the West Indies; New Zealanders Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell McClenaghan, Colin Munro and Luke Ronchi; Australia's Mitchell Johnson; England leg-spinner Adil Rashid; Sri Lankans Thisara Perera and Angelo Mathews and Bangladesh pace sensation Mustafizur Rahman.

The teams have already retained nine players each and will go into the PSL Player Draft to pick one player from the Platinum category, one from the Diamond category, one from the Gold category, two players from the Silver category and two players from the Emerging stars pool, in order to complete their squad of 16.

The teams will also be able to select four players in the supplementary round to complete their 20-member roster.

The Platinum class players will earn a base salary of $140,000, Diamond class players $70,000, Gold class players $50,000, Silver class $25,000 and Emerging players $10,000.

The supplementary players are picked by teams but are not paid unless they join the squad for the tournament at which point their contracts will commence. For supplementary players there is no contractual base salary.

The PSL 2017-18 will also witness the debut of Multan Sultans, making it a six-team affair along with Islamabad United, Karachi Kings, Lahore Qalandars, Peshawar Zalmi and Quetta Gladiators.

Meanwhile, Former Pakistan skipper Wasim Akram on Friday hit out at the International Cricket Council's (ICC) inability to pursue the BCCI to ensue that India play a bilateral series with Pakistan.

Akram said it is very unfortunate that young cricketers from Pakistan and India are unable to play against each other. The 51-year-old lashed out at the ICC for failing to initiate an India-Pakistan series which he felt should be separated from politics.

"I don't think ICC has the power to pursue BCCI, but again I have always said people-to-people contact is necessary. Politics and sport should be separate," Akram was quoted as saying by Geo TV.

The legendary left-arm pacer further said that an India-Pakistan clash is more exciting to watch than the high-octane Ashes series between traditional rivals England and Australia.

"A Pakistan-India match is more fun to watch than the Ashes. Twenty million people watch the Ashes while a Pakistan-India match is watched by a billion people," emphasised Akram, who took 502 wickets from 356 ODIs.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), in 2014, had agreed to play six bilateral series with Pakistan from 2015 to 2023, four of which were to be hosted by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

However, with political tensions across the border, the BCCI has refused to play any of the agreed series yet, neither in Pakistan nor at any neutral venue.

The arch-rivals, however, met in ICC tournaments with the Champions Trophy final in June being the latest when the Sarfraz Ahmed-led Green Brigade thrashed Virat Kohli's side by 180 runs in London.