LAHORE: Just a day after the 20-member squads for the Pakistan Super League (PSL) were completed through player draft, the Pakistan Cricket Board and the franchises on Monday decided to select one more domestic player in each side, besides increasing the pay cap of each player to $25,000.

On Sunday, the PCB completed the process of finalising the selection of all the six franchise teams at the NCA.

“All [six] franchises unanimously decided to increase the player salary cap by $25,000 allowing teams to pick a squad of 21 players for this [PSL] season. The newly-inducted cricketers will be from Pakistan and may include players unearthed through talent hunt programmes or top performers from the National T20 Cup taking place in Rawalpindi currently,” a PCB press release issued on Monday said.

“It was decided at the [Monday] meeting of all franchises with PSL chairman Najam Sethi, which was held at the NCA,” added the press release.

“The meeting as attended by Asher Schon, managing director Multan Sultans; Nadeem Omar, owner of Quetta Gladiators; Javed Afridi, owner of Peshawar Zalmi; Atif Rana, CEO of Lahore Qalandars; Salman Iqbal, owner of Karachi Kings and Ali Naqvi, co-owner of Islamabad United.

“The meeting was briefed about ways to streamline the talent hunt programmes. A detailed plan will be chalked out in consultation with all franchise representatives to further improve the process of scouting new talent,” added the release.

Reiterating PSL’s stance against corruption, Sethi vowed to further strengthen the league’s anti-corruption efforts.

“The problem of counterfeit merchandising was also discussed [at the meeting]. It was decided that the league will take legal measures to clamp down on counterfeit merchandising,” the press release quoted Sethi as saying.

For the first time six teams would participating in next year’s PSL. The total number of matches will be 34, including ten games to be organised in Lahore and Karachi.

Though the availability of some foreign players for the PSL matches to be staged in Pakistan, setting aside security concerns, have been achieved, the PCB is still waiting for the consent of some foreign players.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2017