LAHORE (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan Super League franchises will be allowed to retain up to seven players for the 12th edition of the tournament, but any side that uses its full allowance must release a player from the top price tier of the last auction back into the pool, under rules agreed ahead of the PSL 12 auction on January 23.
All eight franchises unanimously approved the regulations at a tournament operations workshop at the Gaddafi Stadium on Thursday, chaired by PSL chief executive Salman Naseer. The seven retentions include each team’s direct signing, and the mandatory release is meant to make sure elite players are available to every franchise at the auction.
The retention deadline has been set for January 13, ten days before the auction, so teams can judge form in the National T20 Silver tournament and the ongoing National T20 Gold competition. The Pakistan Cricket Board said the timing creates a “live, data-driven link” between domestic cricket and the PSL, allowing an in-form domestic player to “force his way into franchise thinking in real time”.
The auction, only the second in the league’s history, will run under a salary cap of Rs45 crore per franchise, rising to Rs50.5 crore for teams that make a direct signing for PSL 12, retain their direct signing from last season, or both. Every franchise must spend at least Rs36.5 crore on its squad.
The window for direct signings stays open until November 23, with each team allowed to sign one marquee player who did not play in either PSL 10 or PSL 11.
“Every franchise engaged with complete openness, the auction rules were worked through line by line, and we finished with unanimous buy-in across all eight sides,” Naseer said. The PCB said more announcements about PSL 12 would follow in the coming weeks.
