LAHORE: South African greats Dale Steyn and Hashim Amla will be joined by England’s World Cup winners Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid in the draft for next season’s Pakistan Super League (PSL) with the quartet registered in the platinum category, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) announced on Wednesday.

Steyn, South Africa’s leading Test wicket-taker, and Amla, South Africa’s second-highest Test run-getter, are in the list of 28 players in the top category which has a revised salary cap of Rs23-34 million (approx. US$147-218k).

Steyn and Amla retired from international cricket in August this year and their presence, alongside that of Moeen and Adil, will be a big boost for the fifth edition of the PSL; the first season in which all the games will be played in Pakistan.

“Cricket means the world to Pakistani fans and I am excited that I will get to be a part of the PSL draft pool,” Steyn said, according to a PCB news release.

If picked, Steyn will play in Pakistan for the first time since being part of South Africa’s Test squad for their 2007 tour of the country. Amla was also part of that squad, while also being in the ICC World XI team which played a three-match Twenty20 series in Pakistan in 2017.

Moeen and Adil, meanwhile, join Roy — who has previously turned out for Lahore Qalandars and Quetta Gladiators — in making it three players from the England side that won this summer’s World Cup part of the draft.

“I am very excited that I am going to be a part of such an incredible pool of players for the PSL Player Draft,” Moeen was quoted as saying in the news release. On the circuit, players talk about the quality cricket that they have experienced playing in the PSL and I can’t wait to be a part of it.”

The PCB will announce additions to the draft list by or before November 21 while it will share Diamond, Gold, Silver and Emerging lists later this week.

The draft is due to take place in the first week of December.

Platinum category list: Mohammad Nabi, Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, Rashid Khan (all Afghanistan); Dan Christian, Ben Cutting, Chris Lynn (all Australia), Moeen Ali, Harry Gurney, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid and Jason Roy (all England), Sandeep Lamichhane (Nepal), Colin Munro (New Zealand), Hashim Amla, JP Duminy, Colin Ingram, Rilee Rossouw, Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir (all South Africa), Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera (both Sri Lanka), Carlos Brathwaite, Dwayne Bravo, Evin Lewis, Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard (all West Indies).

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2019