Pakistan’s veteran wicketkeeper-batter Kamran Akmal is set to skip the next year’s edition of the Pakistan Super League, starting in January, as he finds it humiliating on his old team Peshawar Zalmi’s part to be picked in the PSL 2022 draft in the lowest category.
Akmal, PSL’s most-capped player in the league’s history and also its second-highest run-getter ever, says Zalmi picking him in the lowest category is a “humiliation”. The 39-year-old told ESPNcricinfo,
“If it has to end like this, so be it, but I am not going to play”.
Akmal stressed that his decision to not play PSL 2022 is final even as ESPNcricinfo reported that Zalmi franchise’s head coach Mohammad Akram is set to meet him and discuss the issue at hand.
“If it has to end like this, so be it, but I am not going to play with such humiliation. This is an embarrassment. You don’t treat a player like this. With all the runs I have scored in the league, I deserve better,”
Akmal said.
Akmal ended up at the wrong side of PCB’s call to reshuffle the player categories ahead of the recent draft. Akmal was moved down from the Diamond Category to Gold Category, which probably still would’ve been fine. But Akmal’s angst is that he got picked by Zalmi in the lowest category – the Silver bracket.
“I agree that rejigging the categories wasn’t the franchises’ prerogative, it was Ramiz Raja [PCB chairman] who reworked the categories. But being picked in Silver was a further demotion,”
he added.
There is a twist in the tale, however, as Akram confirmed to mediapersons after the PSL draft that he spoke to Akmal and promised him that the Zalmi will provide him remuneration equal to that of a Golden category player. This, by making Akmal a team mentor besides the team’s batter, said Akram.
Akmal struggled to get going in this year’s edition of the PSL, making just 283 runs from his 13 outings for Peshawar Zalmi at an average of 21.77 and strike-rate of 129.22.
