The draft for the tenth edition of the PSL will take place on January 11. The date for the draft is later than PSL drafts have historically taken place, though that is partially down to the window for the tournament being pushed back by a month; it will now take place in a four-week slot between early April and mid-May, with the PCB no longer viewing a clash with the IPL as a no-go area.
While no further details of player availability have been announced, the draft is likely to heavily tap into players who went unsold at the IPL auction. One of the factors that influenced the PSL moving into the IPL’s slot was the greater degree of certainty that players not at the IPL would be available due to the near-complete lack of any international fixtures during that period.
At the IPL this year, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Akeal Hosein, Jonny Bairstow, Adil Rashid and Keshav Maharaj were among the players that went unsold, and while many may have had international commitments during the PSL’s window in other years, that will not be the case this time around.
In the medium term, it will also help the PSL avoid being played almost entirely in Ramadan, as would have been the case in 2025. As part of the lunar calendar, Ramadan starts ten days earlier every year on the Gregorian calendar so it would clash with the PSL’s usual February-March window for the next few years. Ramadan not only affects timings of games and crowd turnout, it is also a big window for advertising; playing the PSL in Ramadan would impact advertising and sponsorship revenues for the league.
