The next edition of the Pakistan Super League is set to kick-off from January 27 in a new window that sees the tournament shifting from its original February-March slot in the calendar. The shift has been made by the Pakistan Cricket Board to accommodate Pakistan’s historic home series versus Australia in March and April.
The 2022 campaign 2022 kickstarts a month and a half after its scheduled draft on December 12. The tournament will be played in only two major venues across Pakistan, with Karachi hosting the first 15 games before Lahore hosts the rest of the tournament, including the final on February 27.
PCB chairman Ramiz Raja was “delighted” to be announcing the schedule for the league’s seventh edition and hoped that the tournament would continue to go from strength to strength from here.
“I am delighted that the HBL PSL 7 schedule has been announced. This will now get the ball rolling with teams planning and finalising their line-ups and the PCB increasing the pace of the operational delivery to ensure they provide quality playing facilities for the players as well as five-star experience to the fans and our valued commercial partners,”
he said in a media release.
As per the schedule announced by the PCB on December 3, defending champions Multan Sultans will be taking on the Karachi Kings on an opening day.
Ramiz said that the tournament has been planned to create a level playing field where all six teams are playing an equal number of games in Karachi and Lahore and also an equal number of D/N matches. Keeping in mind the winters, the day matches of PSL 2022 will start from 2 PM and night games from 7 PM local time.
The PSL 2022 draft has also been tweaked to elevate and demote certain players in various categories. The notable promotion has been given to Mohammad Rizwan, who is now in the penultimate category after being in the silver one last year. The list of overseas players to be part of the draft hasn’t been released yet.