The players draft for the seventh season of Pakistan Super League took place on 12 December 2021 at the High Performance Centre in Lahore. Before the draft, the teams were allowed to retain a maximum of 8 players from the previous season and make any transfers. The transfer and retention window closed on 10 December 2021.
Background The Pakistan Cricket Board announced that Lahore Qalandars will have the first pick of the draft. The total purse for each team was capped at $1.2 million.
Each team was also allowed to pick two additional players in the supplementary round. They also had the right to exercise one wildcard pick. In a first in PSL, right-to-match cards were introduced allowing franchises to buy back a maximum of one player that they have released on the draft day by paying the respective fee against each category: Platinum ($130,000-$170,000) Diamond ($60,000-$80,000) Gold ($40,000-$50,000) Silver ($15,000-$25,000) Emerging ($7,500)
Transfers Shahid Afridi and Englishman James Vince were traded from the Multan Sultans to the Quetta Gladiators. As part of the transfer, the Sultans took Quetta's diamond and silver round picks, respectively. 2021 season's Islamabad United players Iftikhar Ahmed was swapped with Quetta Gladiators' wicket-keeper-batsman Azam Khan, while Hussain Talat was traded to Peshawar Zalmi in return for Zalmi's silver category 2nd-round pick.
Retained players On 10 December 2021, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced the retention players list. All the teams were allowed to retain a maximum of 8 players from the previous season. All four franchises fully utilized their quota of eight player retentions apart from Multan Sultans and Quetta Gladiators.
ClassIslamabad UnitedKarachi KingsLahore QalandarsMultan SultansPeshawar ZalmiQuetta Gladiators Platinum Asif Ali Hasan Ali Babar Azam Imad Wasim Shaheen Afridi Rashid Khan Mohammad Rizwan Rilee Rossouw Wahab Riaz Liam Livingstone James Vince Sarfaraz Ahmed Diamond Shadab Khan (ambassador) Faheem Ashraf Mohammad Nabi Mohammad Amir David Wiese Haris Rauf (ambassador) Mohammad Hafeez Sohaib Maqsood Imran Tahir (mentor) Shoaib Malik Sherfane Rutherford Haider Ali Iftikhar Ahmed Mohammad Nawaz Gold Alex Hales (mentor) Mohammad Wasim Jr Azam Khan Joe Clarke (ambassador) Sharjeel Khan Aamer Yamin Shan Masood Khushdil Shah (ambassador) Shahnawaz Dahani Saqib Mahmood (ambassador) Hussain Talat Shahid Afridi (mentor) Mohammad Hasnain (ambassador) Naseem Shah Silver Paul Stirling Mohammad Ilyas Sohail Akhtar Zeeshan Ashraf Ahmed Daniyal Tom Kohler-Cadmore
Draft picks More than 425 players from 32 countries were registered for the draft. For the emerging category, players should be under 23 as of 1 January 2022 and could have either played less than 10 PSL matches in previous seasons but have not been selected in the national squad. ClassIslamabad UnitedKarachi KingsLahore QalandarsMultan SultansPeshawar ZalmiQuetta Gladiators Platinum Colin Munro Chris Jordan Fakhar Zaman Tim David Hazratullah Zazai Jason Roy Diamond Marchant de Lange Lewis Gregory Odean Smith James Faulkner Gold Abdullah Shafique Phil Salt Harry Brook Usman Qadir Silver Muhammad Akhlaq Reece Topley Danish Aziz Zafar Gohar Umaid Asif Tom Abell Rohail Nazir Mohammad Imran Kamran Ghulam Dean Foxcroft Rumman Raees Anwar Ali Asif Afridi Rovman Powell Imran Khan Salman Irshad Arshad Iqbal Sameen Gul Kamran Akmal Umar Akmal Sohail Tanvir Ben Duckett Khurram Shahzad Naveen-ul-Haq Emerging Mubasir Khan Zeeshan Zameer Faisal Akram Qasim Akram Zaman Khan Maaz Khan Abbas Afridi Aamer Azmat Sirajuddin Mohammad Amir Khan Abdul Bangalzai Ashir Qureshi Supplementary Rahmanullah Gurbaz Athar Mahmood Talha Ahsan Romario Shepherd Samit Patel Syed Faridoun Blessing Muzarabani Ihsanullah Ben Cutting Mohammad Haris Noor Ahmad Ahsan Ali
Replacements A replacement player draft took place through a virtual session on 8 January 2022, in which the franchises were also allowed on their request to pick additional two supplementary players. The order of selection was decided through random draw, with each team allowed to pick maximum one foreign player. Zalmi and Gladiators, each reserved their one pick; and announced the names on 17 January.
Class IU KK LQ MS PZ QG Supplementary Muhammad Musa Zahir Khan Sahibzada Farhan Jordan Thompson Mohammad Imran Akif Javed David Willey Rizwan Hussain Mohammad Umar Sohail Khan Ghulam Mudassar Dan Lawrence
Player Team Replaced with Availability Reason Odean Smith MSJohnson CharlesFullNational duty Naveen-ul-Haq QG Luke WoodPersonal reason Tom AbellKK Ian CockbainPersonal reason Romario Shepherd Tom LammonbyNational duty Mohammad Amir Khan PZ Arish Ali KhanInjured Reece Topley IU Waqas MaqsoodPersonal reason James Vince QG Will SmeedPartialNational duty Saqib Mahmood PZ Matt ParkinsonNational duty Phil Salt LQ Ben DunkNational duty Rovman Powell MSDominic DrakesNational duty Jason Roy QG Shimron HetmyerPartialNational duty Liam Livingstone PZ Pat BrownNational duty Chris Jordan KKReservedNational duty Zeeshan Zameer IU Mohammad HurairaPartialSelected in U-19 WC Squads Qasim AkramKK Mohammad Taha Faisal AkramReserved Noor Ahmad QG Ali ImranPartial Harry Brook LQ Matty PottsNational duty Shahid Afridi QG Hasan KhanInjured Paul Stirling IU Liam DawsonNational duty Mohammad Nawaz QG Hasan KhanInjured Rashid Khan LQ Fawad KhanNational duty Dan Lawrence QG Will SmeedFullInjured Mohammad Imran KK Mir HamzaPartialInjured
Few other replacements were announced afterwards. Earlier, players from Cricket South Africa were also in contact to sign in due to cancellation of the 2022 Mzansi Super League, however they were not allowed due to prior commitments of South African cricket team in New Zealand in 2021–22.
List of additional players to be kept in a bio-secure bubble, in case of emergency replacement was announced on 20 January.
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